Fairs for e-commerce: the benefits of aggregating buyers and sellers

In recent years, many new and interesting models of successful online business have been developed. Many of these are based on the competition between users, such as online auctions, where the product price is not fixed and tends to rise. Other models, including group-buying, are based on cooperation between users, characterized by a dynamic price of the product that tends to go down. There is not yet a business model in which both sellers and buyers are grouped in order to negotiate on a specific product or service. The present study investigates a new extension of the group-buying model, called fair, which allows aggregation of demand and supply for price optimization, in a cooperative manner. Additionally, our system also aggregates products and destinations for shipping optimization. We introduced the following new relevant input parameters in order to implement a double-side aggregation: (a) price-quantity curves provided by the seller; (b) waiting time, that is, the longer buyers wait, the greater discount they get; (c) payment time, which determines if the buyer pays before, during or after receiving the product; (d) the distance between the place where products are available and the place of shipment, provided in advance by the buyer or dynamically suggested by the system. To analyze the proposed model we implemented a system prototype and a simulator that allow to study effects of changing some input parameters. We analyzed the dynamic price model in fairs having one single seller and a combination of selected sellers. The results are very encouraging and motivate further investigation on this topic

International Financial Aggregation and Index Number Theory: A Chronological Half-Century Empirical Overview.

This paper comprises a survey of a half century of research on international monetary aggregate data. We argue that since monetary assets began yielding interest, the simple sum monetary aggregates have had no foundations in economic theory and have sequentially produced one source of misunderstanding after another. The bad data produced by simple sum aggregation have contaminated research in monetary economics, have resulted in needless “paradoxes,” and have produced decades of misunderstandings in international monetary economics research and policy. While better data, based correctly on index number theory and aggregation theory, now exist, the official central bank data most commonly used have not improved in most parts of the world. While aggregation theoretic monetary aggregates exist for internal use at the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, and many other central banks throughout the world, the only central banks that currently make aggregation theoretic monetary aggregates available to the public are the Bank of England and the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. No other area of economics has been so seriously damaged by data unrelated to valid index number and aggregation theory. In this paper we chronologically review the past research in this area and connect the data errors with the resulting policy and inference errors. Future research on monetary aggregation and policy can most advantageously focus on extensions to exchange rate risk and its implications for multilateral aggregation over monetary asset portfolios containing assets denominated in more than one currency. The relevant theory for multilateral aggregation with exchange rate risk has been derived by Barnett (2007) and Barnett and Wu (2005).Measurement error, monetary aggregation, Divisia index, aggregation, monetary policy, index number theory, exchange rate risk, multilateral aggregation, open economy monetary economics.

Decision Markets for Policy Advice

The main cause of bad policy decisions is arguably a lack of information. Decisionmakers often do not make use of relevant information about the consequences of the policies they choose. The problem, however, is not simply that public officials do not exploit readily available information. It is also that they do not take full advantage of creative mechanisms that could expand the supply of policy-relevant information. Among the most innovative and potentially useful information-generating mechanisms are speculative markets. Speculative markets produce public information about the perceived likelihood of future events as a natural byproduct of voluntary exchange. Speculative markets do a remarkable job of aggregating information; in every head-to-head field comparison made so far, their forecasts have been at least as accurate as those of competing institutions, such as official government estimates. Many organizations are now trying to take advantage of this effect, experimenting with the creation of "prediction markets" or "information markets," to forecast future events such as product sales and project completion dates. This chapter examines the uses and limitations of decision markets. Decision markets are information markets designed to inform a particular policy decision, by directly estimating relevant consequences of that decision. After reviewing the weaknesses of existing institutions, the mechanics of decision markets, and a concrete example, this chapter reviews the requirements, advantages, and disadvantages of decision markets. The chapter also takes a close look at a particular application of this tool: the controversial yet illuminating attempt to establish a "Policy Analysis Market" to forecast the consequences of major policy U.S. choices in the Middle East.

The Reverse Auction: A New Approach to Experimental Auction Valuation

I propose an alternative approach to auction valuation in which participants indicate the quantity they wish to buy at a series of prices, with the understanding that one will be randomly chosen as the binding price. This technique allows researchers to estimate entire demand curves as well as own-price elasticities.Demand and Price Analysis,

Co-creative pricing (CCP) : a conceptual development of consumers’ participation in pricing practicing in services

Keskustelu yhteisestä arvonluonnista on saavuttanut yhä laajempaa huomiota niin nykypäivän tieteellisteoreettisessa markkinointikirjallisuudessa kuin käytännössä. Suosiosta huolimatta keskustelusta on jäänyt miltei tyystin huomioimatta arvokäsitteen eräs varsin oleellinen ulottuvuus: hinta. Siitä syystä on ensiarvoisen tärkeää tutkia hinnan merkitys arvokäsitteen, yhdessä tuottamisen ja hinnan muodostamassa suhteiden kolmiossa, sillä vaihdannassa hinta on yksi arvonmuodostuksen tärkeimmistä osatekijöistä. Toissijaisia tutkimusmenetelmiä käyttäen, tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus on pyrkiä käsitteellistämään yhteinen hinnanluonti arvon lisääjänä. Niinikään tutkimus tarjoaa mallinnuksen niistä vallitsevista olosuhteista, jotka ovat arvon muodostuksessa välttämättömiä. Esitetty malli perustaa juurensa palvelumarkkinoinnin Service-Dominant Logic -ajattelusta, muodostaen fuusion yhdessä ARA-mallin ja markkinointikeskustelussa vallalla olevan elämysmarkkinointiajattelun kanssa. Tutkimus edistää yhteisen arvonluonnin tieteellistä keskustelua syventämällä jo olemassa olevaa tietoa arvon muodostuksesta. Lisäksi, tutkimus edistää käytännön tietämystä esittämällä eksploratiivisen avauksen hinnoittelun dynaamisesta yhteisajattelusta haastamalla markkinoijia ajattelemaan myös hinnoittelua uudesta innovatiivisesta yhteiseen arvonluontiin perustuvasta näkökulmasta. Nykyajan asiakkaat ovat yhä halukkaampia, pystyvämpiä sekä resursseiltaan rikkaampia osallistumaan hinnoittelupäätöksiin kuin aikaisemmin. Yhdessä tuotettu arvo hinnoittelun kautta tarjoaa vaihtoehtoisen ajattelutavan pitkään vallinneelle yritysten sisäänpäin suuntautuneelle hinnoitteluajattelulle ja esittää, että kääntämällä katse asiakkaan suuntaan, saavutetaan todellinen arvo, sellaisena kuin asiakas sen määrittelee. Tutkimuksessa esiin tuotu ajattelutapa tarjoaa uusia mahdollisuuksia vaihtoehtoisille hinnoittelumenetelmille sekä palveluinnovaatioille.Co-creation debate has increasingly become a key topic in the contemporary services marketing theory and practice. Domains of co-creation and value have thus far attracted plenty of academic interest, however, there is an evident deficiency of one essential dimension of value: price. In the triangular relation of co-creation, value and price, it is of high importance to research the role of price, as it is one of the prime components contributing to the formation of value in an exchange. Using secondary research methods, this research works towards a conceptualization of CCP and offers a model of the conditions that need to be in place for value through CCP to occur. The model builds its foundations on Service-Dominant Logic debate. Combined together with the ARA model, and the prevalent thinking of experiential marketing, the work contributes to the academic co-creation literature by adding to the knowledge of value creation. Further, it presents an explorative opening of dynamic pricing thinking for practitioners by challenging the marketers to think their pricing from an innovative co-creation based view. Co-created pricing offers an alternative logic to inwardly focused value creation of the firm and suggests that by turning the focus on the customer, the true value, as perceived by the customer, is captured. Today’s customers are increasingly willing, capable and rich in their resources to participate in pricing decisions, thereby offering an opportunity for alternative pricing methods and service innovations

Shopbots, Powershopping, Powersales: New Forms of Intermediation in E-Commerce - An Overview -

With the advent and proliferation of the Internet many aspects of business and market activities are changing. New forms of intermediation also called cybermediaries are becoming increasingly important as a coordinator of interaction between buyers and sellers in the electronic market environment. Especially the overwhelming abundance of information offered by the Internet promotes the development of new intermediarie like malls, shopbots, virtual resellers etc. This paper provides a detailed overview of different new forms of cybermediation and illustrates their influence on consumer choice, firm pricing and product differentiation strategies.comparison shopping, cybermediaries, e-commerce, shopbots

A new model for procuring e-books

This paper draws on a recent ground-breaking tender for e-books for higher education libraries in the UK. The strategy for the tender was informed by standard procurement practice and by the experience of acquiring other e-resources, particularly journals under the so-called big deal. Both are examined as background to the discussion of e-books in general and the tender in particular

Mashup indices of development

Countries are increasingly being ranked by some new"mashup index of development,"defined as a composite index for which existing theory and practice provides little or no guidance to its design. Thus the index has an unusually large number of moving parts, which the producer is essentially free to set. The parsimony of these indices is often appealing -- collapsing multiple dimensions into just one, yielding unambiguous country rankings, and possibly reducing concerns about measurement errors in the component series. But the meaning, interpretation and robustness of these indices are often unclear. If they are to be properly understood and used, more attention needs to be given to their conceptual foundations, the tradeoffs they embody, the contextual factors relevant to country performance, and the sensitivity of the implied rankings to changing the data and weights. In short, clearer warning signs are needed for users. But even then, nagging doubts remain about the value-added of mashup indices, and their policy relevance, relative to the"dashboard"alternative of monitoring the components separately. Future progress in devising useful new composite indices of development will require that theory catches up with measurement practice.Economic Theory&Research,Information Security&Privacy,Governance Indicators,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Debt Markets

States Buying Smarter: Lessons Learned From Minnesota and Virginia

Profiles successful government procurement practices, including aggregating demand, promoting innovation, streamlining processes, emphasizing price, and strengthening negotiating skills and vendor relationships; challenges; and principles across states