• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.123-138
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• 2009

This study examined the first- and second-best pricing by stable dynamics in congested transportation networks. Stable dynamics, suggested by Nesterov and de Palma (2003), is a new model which describes and provides a stable state of congestion in urban transportation networks. The first-best pricing in user equilibrium models introduces user-equilibrium in the system-equilibrium by tolling the difference between the marginal social cost and the marginal private cost on each link. Nevertheless, the second-best pricing, which levies the toll on some, but not all, links, is relevant from the practical point of view. In comparison with the user equilibrium model, the stable dynamic model provides a solution equivalent to system-equilibrium if it is focused on link flows. Therefore the toll interval on each link, which keeps up the system-equilibrium, is more meaningful than the first-best pricing. In addition, the second-best pricing in stable dynamic models is the same as the first-best pricing since the toll interval is separately given by each link. As an effect of congestion pricing in stable dynamic models, we can remove the inefficiency of the network with inefficient Braess links by levying a toll on the Braess link. We present a numerical example applied to the network with 6 nodes and 9 links, including 2 Braess links.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.35-69
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• 2014

The impact of competition on pricing has been studied in the context of counterfactual merger analyses where expected optimal prices in a hypothetical monopoly are compared with observed prices in an oligopolistic market. Such analyses would typically assume static decision making by consumers and firms and thus have been applied mostly to data obtained from consumer packed goods such as cereal and soft drinks. However such static modeling approach is not suitable when decision makers are forward looking. When it comes to the markets for durable products with indirect network effects, consumer purchase decisions and firm pricing decisions are inherently dynamic as they take into account future states when making purchase and pricing decisions. Researchers need to take into account the dynamic aspects of decision making both in the consumer side and in the supplier side for such markets. Firms in a two-sided market typically subsidize one side of the market to exploit the indirect network effect. Such pricing behaviors would be more prevalent in competitive markets where firms would try to win over the battle for standard. While such qualitative expectation on the relationship between pricing behaviors and competitive structures could be easily formed, little empirical studies have measured the extent to which the distinct pricing structure in two-sided markets depends on the competitive structure of the market. This paper develops an empirical model to measure the impact of competition on optimal pricing of durable products under indirect network effects. In order to measure the impact of exogenously determined competition among firms on pricing, we compare the equilibrium prices in the observed oligopoly market to those in a hypothetical monopoly market. In computing the equilibrium prices, we account for the forward looking behaviors of consumers and supplier. We first estimate a demand function that accounts for consumers' forward-looking behaviors and indirect network effects. And then, for the supply side, the pricing equation is obtained as an outcome of the Markov Perfect Nash Equilibrium in pricing. In doing so, we utilize numerical dynamic programming techniques. We apply our model to a data set obtained from the U.S. video game console market. The video game console market is considered a prototypical case of two-sided markets in which the platform typically subsidizes one side of market to expand the installed base anticipating larger revenues in the other side of market resulting from the expanded installed base. The data consist of monthly observations of price, hardware unit sales and the number of compatible software titles for Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64 from September 1996 to August 2002. Sony PlayStation was released to the market a year before Nintendo 64 was launched. We compute the expected equilibrium price path for Nintendo 64 and Playstation for both oligopoly and for monopoly. Our analysis reveals that the price level differs significantly between two competition structures. The merged monopoly is expected to set prices higher by 14.8% for Sony PlayStation and 21.8% for Nintendo 64 on average than the independent firms in an oligopoly would do. And such removal of competition would result in a reduction in consumer value by 43.1%. Higher prices are expected for the hypothetical monopoly because the merged firm does not need to engage in the battle for industry standard. This result is attributed to the distinct property of a two-sided market that competing firms tend to set low prices particularly at the initial period to attract consumers at the introductory stage and to reinforce their own networks and eventually finally to dominate the market.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.146-153
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• 2016

This work studies the equilibrium behavior of customers and optimal pricing strategies of the sever in a continuous-time M/M/1 queueing system. In this work, we consider two pricing models. The first one is called the ex-ante payment scheme where the server charges a flat price for all services, and the second one is called the ex-post payment scheme where the server charges a price that is proportional to the time a customer spends in the system. In each pricing model, the departing customer receives the reward that is inversely proportional to his/her sojourn time. The server should make the optimal pricing decisions in order to maximize its expected profit per unit time in each payment scheme. This work also investigates customer's equilibrium joining or balking behaviors under server's optimal pricing strategies. Numerical experiments are conducted to help the server best select one between two pricing models.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.1192-1207
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• 2014

Dynamic spectrum sharing is a key technology to improve spectrum utilization in wireless networks. The elastic spectrum management provides a new opportunity for licensed primary users and unlicensed secondary users to efficiently utilize the scarce wireless resource. In this paper, we present a game-theoretic framework for dynamic spectrum allocation where the primary users rent the unutilized spectrum to the secondary users for a monetary profit. In reality, due to the ON-OFF behavior of the primary user, the quantity of spectrum that can be opportunistically shared by the secondary users is limited. We model this situation with the renewal theory and formulate the spectrum pricing scheme with the Bertrand game, taking into account the scarcity of the spectrum. By the Nash-equilibrium pricing scheme, each player in the game continually converges to a strategy that maximizes its own profit. We also investigate the impact of several properties, including channel quality and spectrum substitutability. Based on the equilibrium analysis, we finally propose a decentralized algorithm that leads the primary users to the Nash-equilibrium, called DST. The stability of the proposed algorithm in terms of convergence to the Nash equilibrium is also studied.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.65-74
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• 2008

The aim is to get comprehensive view point for the price of apartment. Apartment construction cost is the sun of land cost and building cost. Land price reflects the value of location where building stands. When the gap between price and affordability is narrow enough, effective demand promote apartment construction. The today's trends of rising price, which began in apartment housing, spreads to real estates market and finally overall consumer price. Problem is that price is decided only by supplier's interest. Equilibrium-pricing is common process in housing market. However it is important to review hedonic price and the factor of housing services and focused on the affordability of demanders. AHP analysis was used to study real needs and preference of demanders and dealt with 200 interviewees with brief checklists. We found that social factor is more important than building cost or site development. Especially location of apartment is most important to affect environment quality and accessibility to facilities.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.494-499
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• 2007

In this paper, we have investigated how transmission network constraints can be modeled in an electricity market equilibrium model. Under Cournot competition assumption, a game model is set up considering transmission line capacity constraints. Based on locational marginal pricing principle, market clearing is formulated as a total consumers# benefit maximization problem, and then converted to a conventional optimal power flow (OPF) formulation with a linearized transmission model. Using market clearing formulation, best response analysis is formulated and, finally, Nash equilibrium is formulated. In order for illustration, a numerical study for a four node system with two generating firms and two loads are presented.

• KIEE International Transactions on Power Engineering
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• v.5A no.1
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• pp.85-92
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• 2005

In this paper, Nash equilibriums of generation markets are investigated using a game theory application for simplified competitive electricity markets. We analyze the characteristics of equilibrium states in N-company spot markets modeled by uniform pricing auctions and propose a new method for obtaining Nash equilibriums of the auction. We assume that spot markets are operated as uniform pricing auctions and that each generation company submits its bids into the auction in the form of a seal-bid. Depending on the bids of generation companies, market demands are allocated to each company accordingly. The uniform pricing auction in this analysis can be formulated as a non-cooperative and static game in which generation companies correspond to players of the game. The coefficient of the bidding function of company-n is the strategy of player-n (company-n) and the payoff of player-n is defined as its profit from the uniform price auction. The solution of this game can be obtained using the concept of the non-cooperative equilibrium originating from the Nash idea. Based on the so called residual demand curve, we can derive the best response function of each generation company in the uniform pricing auction with N companies, analytically. Finally, we present an efficient means to obtain all the possible equilibrium set pairs and to examine their feasibilities as Nash equilibriums. A simple numerical example with three generation companies is demonstrated to illustrate the basic idea of the proposed methodology. From this, we can see the applicability of the proposed method to the real-world problem, even though further future analysis is required.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.5D
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• pp.649-654
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• 2008

In the definition of non additive path, the sum of travel costs of links making up the path is not equal to the path cost. There are a variety of cases that non-additivity assumption does not hold in transportation fields. Nonetheless, traffic equilibrium models are generally built up on the fundamental hypothesis of additivity assumption. In this case traffic equilibrium models are only applicable within restrictive conditions of the path cost being linear functions of link cost. Area-wide road pricing is known as an example of realistic transportation situations, which violates such additivity assumption. Because travel fare is charged at the moment of driver's passing by exit gate while identified at entry gate, it may not be added linearly proportional to link costs. This research proposes a novel Wordrop type of traffic equilibrium model in terms of area-wide road pricing schemes. It introduces binary indicator variable for the sake of transforming non-additive path cost to additive. Since conventional shortest path and Frank-Wolfe algorithm can be applied without route enumeration and network representation is not required, it can be recognized more generalized model compared to the pre-proposed approaches. Theoretical proofs and case studies are demonstrated.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.145-155
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• 2009

This paper compares the relative performances of area and cordon tolls as opposed to the first-best congestion tolls with respect to alleviation of traffic congestion and social welfare. The comparison is done in the monocentric city where all the jobs are located at the city center. The study shows that the size of charging zones is similar in the two second-bests, but that the optimal toll level is higher in area pricing than in cordon pricing. Area pricing schemes turn out to perform better than cordon pricing schemes as measured by average speeds and daily average travel time. Accordingly, the former is shown to increase the social welfare more than the latter. In the case of the cordon tolls, the residents at the charging zones are exempted from the tolls. In this way, cordon tolls invite people into the most congested areas over the optimal level while partially negating the whole spirit of the congestion tolls.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.183-193
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• 2007

Traditionally, a congestion charge based on first-best congestion pricing theory, namely, the theory of marginal cost pricing theory, is equal to the difference between marginal social cost and marginal private cost. It is charged on each link so as to derive a user equilibrium flow pattern to a system optimal one. Based on this theory this paper investigates on the characteristics of first-best congestion pricing of multiple user class on road with variable demand, and presents two methods for analysis of social and spatial equity. For these purposes, we study on the characteristics of first-best congestion pricing derived from system optimal in time and in monetary unit, and analyze equity from this congestion pricing with an example network.