The Discriminating Beta: Prices and Capacity with Correlated Demands

C-Tier
Journal: Southern Economic Journal
Year: 2014
Volume: 81
Issue: 1
Pages: 56-67

Authors (2)

Catherine C. Eckel (Texas A&M University) William T. Smith (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

0.503 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Uniform customer‐class pricing can do much of the work of congestion‐based or time‐of‐day pricing in communication or wireless networks. A monopolist exploits differences in the stochastic characteristics of demands. If demands are correlated and the firm faces a capacity constraint, then it can set prices to reduce the variability of aggregate demand, thereby reducing the probability of excess demand and the associated service quality deterioration. Demands that covary negatively with aggregate demand are valuable to the firm in much the same way that securities that covary negatively with the market are valuable in a stock portfolio. Customer classes that exhibit low covariance with aggregate demand realize lower optimal prices. Optimal capacity is also affected by these covariances. As long as demands are not perfectly positively correlated, expected costs of joint production are less than expected costs of serving demands separately.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:wly:soecon:v:81:y:2014:i:1:p:56-67
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25