Dynamic nonlinear pricing: Biased expectations, inattention, and bill shock

Recent research highlights the importance of biased expectations and inattention for nonlinear pricing in dynamic environments. Findings are: (1) Three-part tariffs, such as cellular service contracts, exploit consumer overconfidence. (2) Surprise penalty fees may be used to further exploit biased b...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Grubb, Michael D.
Other Authors: Sloan School of Management
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Elsevier 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99174
Description
Summary:Recent research highlights the importance of biased expectations and inattention for nonlinear pricing in dynamic environments. Findings are: (1) Three-part tariffs, such as cellular service contracts, exploit consumer overconfidence. (2) Surprise penalty fees may be used to further exploit biased beliefs or alternatively to price discriminate more efficiently whenever consumers are inattentive. (3) Implementing the recent bill-shock agreement between cellular carriers and the FCC is predicted to harm rather than help consumers when endogenous price changes are taken into account.