Interchange fee rate, merchant discount rate and retail prices in a credit card network: A game-theoretic analysis

We consider two game-theoretic settings to determine the optimal values of an issuer's interchange fee rate, an acquirer's merchant discount rate, and a merchant's retail price in a credit card network. In the first setting, we investigate a two-stage game problem in which the issuer and the acquirer first negotiate the interchange fee rate, and the acquirer and the retailer then determine their merchant discount rate and retail price, respectively. In the second setting, motivated by the recent US bill “H.R. 2695,” we develop a three-player cooperative game in which the issuer, the acquirer, and the merchant form a grand coalition and bargain over the interchange fee rate and the merchant discount rate. Following the cooperative game, the retailer makes its retail pricing decision. We derive both the Shapley value- and the nucleolus-characterized, and globally-optimal unique rates for the grand coalition. Comparing the two game settings, we find that the participation of the merchant in the negotiation process can result in the reduction of both rates. Moreover, the stability of the grand coalition in the cooperative game setting may require that the merchant should delegate the credit card business only to the issuer and the acquirer with sufficiently low operation costs. We also show that the grand coalition is more likely to be stable and the U.S. bill “H.R. 2695” is thus more effective, if the degree of division of labor in the credit card network is higher as the merchant, acquirer, and issuer are more specialized in the retailing, acquiring, and issuing operations, respectively. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 201

Analytic solution for the nucleolus of a three-player cooperative game

The nucleolus solution for cooperative games in characteristic function form is usually computed numerically by solving a sequence of linear programing (LP) problems, or by solving a single, but very large-scale, LP problem. This article proposes an algebraic method to compute the nucleolus solution analytically (i.e., in closed-form) for a three-player cooperative game in characteristic function form. We first consider cooperative games with empty core and derive a formula to compute the nucleolus solution. Next, we examine cooperative games with nonempty core and calculate the nucleolus solution analytically for five possible cases arising from the relationship among the value functions of different coalitions

The retail space-exchange problem with pricing and space allocation decisions

We consider retail space-exchange problems where two retailers exchange shelf space to increase accessibility to more of their consumers in more locations without opening new stores. Using the Hotelling model, we find two retailers’ optimal prices, given their host and guest space in two stores under the space-exchange strategy. Next, using the optimal space-dependent prices, we analyze a non-cooperative game, where each retailer makes a space allocation decision for the retailer\u27s own store. We show that the two retailers will implement such a strategy in the game, if and only if their stores are large enough to serve more than one-half of their consumers. Nash equilibrium for the game exists, and its value depends on consumers’ utilities and trip costs as well as the total available space in each retailer\u27s store. Moreover, as a result of the space-exchange strategy, each retailer\u27s prices in two stores are both higher than the retailer\u27s price before the space exchange, but they may or may not be identical