The Impact of Digitization on Information Goods Pricing Strategy

The widespread adoption of the Internet and digital technologies has transformed the distribution and consumption of information goods. We develop a parsimonious model to study pricing strategies of a publisher who offers information good in dual medium (physical, digital) as well as in bundled medium. Consumers are heterogeneous in both valuation for content and preference for medium. We show that offering digital medium only (single component) is optimal under some market conditions, while offering bundle of mediums and digital medium only (partial mixed bundling) is optimal under other market conditions. We find that offering information good in physical medium and in digital medium (pure component) is not optimal when the two mediums are partial substitutes. Moreover, offering only bundle of mediums (pure bundling) is not optimal when physical medium has non-negligible marginal cost. Interestingly, it is always profit enhancing to offer digital medium, even if most consumers prefer physical medium

Management Accounting for Service: A Research Agenda

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to point out a research agenda for Management Accounting under the emergent Service-Dominant (S-D) Logic. S-D Logic is widely discussed in the field of Marketing, the paper tries to extend S-D Logic in the Management Accounting context and develops some related considerations. Methodology/approach – Service related change in economy and firms raises new challenging issues in management accounting topics such as cost classification, cost structure, cost object, the role of “traditional” accounting tools and models, price-cost relations for pricing decisions. In this paper, we identify several critical research questions that address a tentative research agenda in the field of management accounting to better explore its role within service science. Throughout the paper many different examples are provided in order to support what is sustained. Findings – The conclusions of the paper trace some aspects addressed as core in the distinction between Goods-Dominant Accounting and Service-Dominant Accounting. Considering the new changing service environment, the role of management accounting in providing information to support managerial decision making and control can be widely renewed. Research implications – The paper opens many underexplored topics on Management accounting in the interface with service and traces a research agenda for further research. Originality/value – This is the first paper, after the brief overview on accounting and Service Science provided by Kerr (2008), aiming at understanding the role of Management accounting in the context of S-D Logic.Service-Dominant Logic, Management Accounting, Costing, Measurement, Value.

U.S. Telecommunications Today, April 1999

This short essay examines the current conditions in the US telecommunications sector (April 1999). We examine the impact of technological and regulatory change on market structure and business strategy. Among others, we examine the impact on pricing of digitization and the emergence of internet telephony. We briefly examine the impact of the 1996 Telecommunications Act on market structure and strategy in conjunction with the history of regulation and antitrust intervention in the telecommunications sector. After discussing the impact of wireless technologies, we conclude by venturing into some short term predictions. We express concern about the derailment of the implementation of the 1996 Act by the aggressive legal tactics of the entrenched monopolists (the local exchange carriers), and we point to the real danger that the intent of Congress in passing the 1996 Act to promote competition in telecommunications will not be realized. After discussing the impact of wireless technologies, we comment on the wave of mergers in the Telecommunications and cable industries.

Competition and cooperation: Libraries and publishers in the transition to electronic scholarly journals

The conversion of scholarly journals to digital format is proceeding rapidly, especially for those from large commercial and learned society publishers. This conversion offers the best hope for survival for such publishers. The infamous "journal crisis" is more of a library cost crisis than a publisher pricing problem, with internal library costs much higher than the amount spent on purchasing books and journals. Therefore publishers may be able to retain or even increase their revenues and profits, while at the same time providing a superior service. To do this, they will have to take over many of the function of libraries, and they can do that only in the digital domain. This paper examines publishers' strategies, how they are likely to evolve, and how they will affect libraries

Technology infrastructure in information technology industries

Abstract not availableeconomics of technology business administration and economics

Raising Skepticisms on the Feasibility of Algorithmic Tacit Collusion

Advances in artificial intelligence accelerate the digitization of pricing in various industry domains, from home appliances to hotels. At the same time, economic theories and legal cases claim that the advances benefit some players through synchronous algorithmic pricing, so-called Algorithmic Tacit Collusion (ATC). However, the previous studies rely on artificial intelligence’s broad collusion mechanisms in various pricing scenarios. The paper unravels the mixture of ATC problems by specifying the algorithmic pricing context in platform providers’ oligopoly and adjusting the underlying assumptions to the context. Our simulation of Iterative Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) games with various heterogeneous pricing algorithms show that ATC emerges in rare conditions (i.e., algorithm and information symmetries). Our findings suggest that understanding the technology and business architectures should precede deriving the theories of ATC and implementing the legal cases and policies of digitization for the next generation’s pricing

CREATIVE PRICING IN MARKETS FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Technological changes over the past two decades have made it easier to distribute and to copy intellectual property. Creators and owners of intellectual property have responded to these changes with a variety of creative pricing strategies. The paper reviews some of these pricing innovations. Two broad categories of innovations are explored: those that facilitate price discrimination and those that exploit complementarities between di¤erent types of creative works.pricing, intellectual property