The question of the management of the transfer process and transfer pricing is an important one for managers and academics alike (Colbert and Spicer, 1995). Yet, in general, our current knowledge on several aspects of transfer pricing process is limited. One question which arises in relation to transfer pricing in service organizations is whether there is an association between the transfer price and the internal customer's perception of value emanating from the transaction. An inappropriate transfer pricing system can give rise to a number of adverse effects which can include among other things, maldistribution of economic resources, negative motivation for reducing costs (Lesser, 1987), lack of goal congruence and inequitable performance evaluation (Cravens and Shearon, 1997). The gap in the literature on transfer pricing in the service sector applies equally in the Australian setting. This is despite the significant and increasing contribution of the service sector to both GDP and employment. The objective of this research is to explore the domestic transfer pricing practices of service organisations in Australia with the emphasis placed on examining whether, in internal transactions, the domestic transfer price had any influence on the value perceived by the internal buyer. Because the extant transfer pricing theories cannot explain the value perceived by the internal customer in internal exchange of goods and services, an exploratory research methodology is adopted and no assumptions are made about the relationship. PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.pdffactory.com 3 Data were gathered from survey responses from eighty service organisations and thirteen face-to-face interviews. Survey data were sought at two levels. Questions of a strategic nature were directed to corporate management while questions pertinent to transfer pricing and value were sought from the divisional management who are actually involved in such transfers. Exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that cost-based transfer pricing was the most preferred method, and in internal transactions, and responsiveness of the internal supplier was the key factor for internal buyers. The research found that service organisations are external customer oriented and internal customer issues are secondary. The research results also demonstrate that no significant association exists between transfer pricing and internal customer perceived value. The current research contributes to the transfer pricing literature by providing insights to locus of transfer pricing decisions, transfer pricing methods employed by service organizations in Australia, objectives of transfer pricing systems, conflicts arising during from the transfer pricing process and the role of transfer prices on the value perceived by internal customers. As a research topic, this study is pioneering as it integrates for the first time, the constructs of transfer price and value in internal transactions. Another unique feature of this research is that it was carried out in another important but under-researched context of service organisations.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

We present a dynamic optimization approach for perishable products in a competitive and dynamically changing market. We build a general optimization framework that ties together the competetive and the dynamic nature of pricing. This approach also allows differential pricing for large customers as well as demand learning for the seller. We analyze special cases of the model and illustrate the policies numerically. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

In this paper, we introduce a fluid model of dynamic pricing and inventory management for make-to-stock manufacturing systems. Instead of considering a traditional model that is based on how price affects demand, we consider a model that relies on how price and level of inventory affect the time a unit of product remains in inventory. Our motivation is based on the observation that in inventory systems, a unit of product incurs a delay before being sold. This delay depends on the unit price of the product, prices of competitors, and the level of inventory of this product. Moreover, delay data is not hard to acquire and is internally controlled and monitored by the manufacturer. It is interesting to notice that this delay is similar to travel times incurred in a transportation network. The model of this paper includes joint pricing, production and inventory decisions in a competitive, capacitated multi-product dynamic environment. In particular, in this paper we (i) introduce a model for dynamic pricing and inventory control that uses delay rather then demand data and establish connections with traditional demand models, (ii) study analytical properties of this model, (iii) establish conditions under which the model has a solution and finally, (iv) establish an algorithm that solves efficiently a discretized version of the model.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [188]-195). Also available in electronic version.

The U.S. wool industry has long received lower prices for comparable wool types than those of Australia. In order to better understand such price differences, economic evaluations of both the U.S. and Australian wool markets were conducted. This research focused on two primary objectives. The first objective was to determine what price differences existed between the Australian and U.S. wool markets and measure that difference. The second objective was to calculate price differences attributable to wool characteristics, as well as those resulting from regional, seasonal, and yearly differences. In order to accomplish the objectives, the study was set up into three different hedonic pricing models: U.S., Australian, and combined. In the U.S. model, there were significant price differences in season, year, region, level of preparation, and wool description. In addition, average fiber diameter (AFD) had a negative nonlinear relationship with price and lot weight had a positive linear relationship with price. The Australian model was notably different than the U.S. model in that there were only three variables. The yearly variable follows the same general pattern as the U.S. data but with a smaller span of difference. The seasonal price differences were distinctly different than the U.S. because of the difference in seasonal patterns. In addition, the AFD had a similar negative nonlinear relationship with price. The final model combines both the U.S. data and the Australian data. The combined model had only three variables: season, year, AFD and country. As in the case of the previous two models, AFD had the same negative nonlinear relationship and similar price elasticity. Overall, there was a -30.5 percent discount for U.S. wool when compared to Australian wool. This can be attributed to several different factors. One of which is that the Australian wool industry has a more extensive marketing scheme when compared to the U.S wool market as a whole. However, this is only a beginning to future research that needs to be conducted. Continuing this study for future years, having more descriptive categories, and additional countries would further add explanation to wool prices.

An extensive body of research supports the momentum strategy's persistence but disagrees on the underlying source of its profitability. A key obstacle to distinguishing between behavioral and rational explanations of momentum is that mispricing is unobservable. This dissertation studies the endogenous relationship between momentum trading and mispricing. The basic idea is that momentum trades can impede arbitrage when they are in the opposite direction of arbitrage trades and reinforce arbitrage when they are in the same direction. A simple model suggests that when momentum trades reinforce the arbitrage process, momentum strategy returns contain relatively less mispricing than when momentum trades impede the arbitrage process. Empirical results show that an arbitrage-reinforcing strategy has significantly higher average returns that are largely related to risk and do not reverse in subsequent periods, while an arbitrage-impeding strategy exhibits significant long-term reversal consistent with more mispricing. Additional tests show that winners have higher future growth rates than losers consistent with cross-sectional differences in expected returns. Overall, the evidence suggests that momentum profitability is largely related to risk which is partially masked by mispricing. An important implication of this model is that, like noise traders, trading strategies that do not condition on relative value can impede arbitrage.

This dissertation is a collection of three economic studies on the demand for and optimal pricing of state lottery games. Lottery betting is a multi-billion dollar industry that provides an important source of government revenue. Since lotteries operate at such a large scale, suboptimal pricing could lead to substantial losses in potential profit. This body of work provides a significant contribution to the literature on lottery demand by introducing a number of innovative modeling techniques that resolve major shortcomings found in current methods and provide direct policy implications for improving the profitability of state lottery games. The first essay discusses and resolves three important issues widely overlooked in the literature on lottery demand: the treatment of observations with super-unitary expected values, controlling for the endogeneity of price, and the usefulness of estimating price elasticities evaluated at the sample mean. The second essay extends the effective price model of lottery demand into a setting where a single controller operates a portfolio of games simultaneously. Expenditure, own-, and cross-price elasticities for several on-line lottery games are estimated with a Barten synthetic demand system. These elasticities are used to obtain measures of price sensitivity, to determine the degree to which these games are either complements or substitutes, and to evaluate whether profits are maximized over the entire portfolio. Finally, the third essay describes a new method to analyze the profitability of different pricing schemes that explicitly accounts for the intertemporal nature of lottery games with rolling jackpots. Since period-by-period variation in sales induced by rolling jackpots causes changes in the probability that a jackpot is won, which in-turn influences the probability of reaching new drawings with higher jackpot amounts, static analysis of lottery profitability could lead to biased estimates of expected profit. By utilizing a Monte Carlo integration procedure, a measure of expected profit is obtained through the simulation of lottery play over a period of four years. Hypothetical policy changes are examined to estimate potential increases in profitability. Empirical results for the game, Lotto Texas, indicate that a $0.40 increase in price would lead to an estimated increase in profit ranging from $142 million to $191 million over four years.

Increasingly, firms are offering hybrid bundles — products that combine both good(s) and service(s). Some hybrid bundles, such as TiVo that combines a DVR and recording management are more visible, while some, such as GE‘s Powerplant System that includes a nuclear power plant and maintenance/project management are more obscure. While pricing strategies for a goods bundle have been well-studied, services bundles have been underexplored. Hybrid bundles, which are fundamentally different from bundles of goods or services, have received even less attention. In this dissertation, three essays offer important insights into different aspects of hybrid bundle pricing and provide important managerial implications and guidelines. Essay I develops an analytic model of optimal pricing for hybrid bundles by a monopolist. My results show that an increase in quality variability of the service is generally associated with a higher optimal hybrid bundle price and a lower optimal price of the good, but lower overall bundle profit. They also reveal that the optimal price of the service (good) in a hybrid bundle is higher (lower) when the good has diminishing unit cost and the service has constant unit cost. Essay II examines the effects of quality variability, independence, and complementarity on willingness-to-pay for hybrid bundle components using conjoint analysis experiments. The results show that higher quality variability of a service is associated with a wider distribution of willingness-to-pay, that independence between the good and the service has positive direct- and cross-effects on willingness-to-pay, that complementarity between components has a greater positive effect on the willingness-to-pay for the service than for the good, and that independence and complementarity interact to increase willingness-to-pay. Essay III develops a general model for the pricing of hybrid bundles offered in a competitive setting. I estimate the model using empirical data of a hybrid bundle comprising carpet and installation. The results show that the price of the service plays a crucial role in the demands of both the good and service and that the service cross-price effect on the demand for the good can be substantially higher than the direct-price effect of the good on its own demand.

Abstract Intangible Assets Pricing Model in Biotech industry In the era of knowledge-based economic, the revenue creation model of companies are transiting from conventional fixed-assets focus to new intellectual assets, brand names, and customer needs focus. Taiwan industries also jumped into this wagon and are gradually switching from the equipment manufacturers (OEM) model focused on production to a new type of model concentrated on the conjunction of technology, brand, and services. After the revision of corporation law in 2001 to stipulate that companies are allow to capitalization of their technology or goodwill, it is becomes a must to establish a well accepted pricing model for these intangible assets to the banks or industry-wide. The key of the pricing model is how to apply the valuation rules, which are commonly for the tangible assets, to the intangible assets. The pricing model will be able to act as a start point for the traders to negotiation, and decrease the transaction costs related to information non-transparence or information gathering. This paper tried to survey all the possible pricing models, regardless of theoretical and empirical ones, and make a comparison among these models. In addition, there is an analysis of market information in biotech development. At last, this paper explored some current applied pricing models by interviewing the people in the industries and using cases studies. Although there is no wide-accepted valuation l to apply, the searching as many models as possible may provide various ways to re-evaluate pricing models, and in the hope to come up a result reflected closer to the reality.