Sequential Solutions to Capacity-Planning and Pricing Decisions
研究企业因信息限制而先规划产能、后调整定价的序贯决策方式,分析其经济效率损失,发现若后续定价能灵活反映市场则损失较小,但若对调价施加合理限制(如价格不低于完全成本)则损失显著。
Ideally, firms should jointly solve capacity-planning and product-pricing problems. In practice, informational limitations and cognitive bounds may force firms to sequentially solve the two problems. For example, a firm may plan capacity using limited demand information, and update prices subsequently once additional demand information becomes available. In a simple setting, we characterize the economic loss due to such sequential planning. We use simulation experiments to assess the extent of this loss in more complex settings. We find a relatively low loss if the firm plans for capacity using limited demand information and subsequently adjusts product prices to reflect realized market conditions. However, even "reasonable" restrictions on the subsequent price adjustment (e.g., constraining adjusted prices to always exceed full cost) lead to significant economic loss.