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      Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management

                             The Chinese University of Hong Kong

 

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Date: 4:30pm to 5:30pm, Mar. 23, 2017 (Thursday)

 

Title: Pricing in Social Networks with Strategic Consumers

 

Speaker:  Prof. Biying Shou, Assistant Professor of Management Sciences, City University of Hong Kong

 

Abstract:

 

We consider a dynamic pricing problem with strategic consumers connected in a social network. Consumers can choose to purchase early or wait till later. For those who purchase later, they can get positive externality from their friends who have purchased early, but they also have to bear a utility discount for delayed consumption. We derive the optimal pricing policy under general social network structures. We find that, when the influence between the agents is symmetric and the intensity of the network externality effect is low, it's optimal for the seller to conduct an increasing dynamic pricing policy for all consumers. However, when the influence between the consumers is asymmetric and the network externality effect is very substantial, the seller may charge higher prices for some consumers in the early period than in the later period. We also evaluate the profit loss for the seller under different scenarios if it had ignored the social network structure. 

This is a joint work with Rui Zheng.

 

Biography:

 

Biying Shou is an Assistant Professor of Management Sciences at City University of Hong Kong. She received B.E. from Tsinghua University and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. Her research focuses on operations and supply chain management, marketing and operations interface, and network economics. She has published papers in Operations Research, Production and Operations Management and other leading journals. She also worked at or consulted for firms including General Motors (US), Motorola (US), Crate and Barrel (US), Eastcom (China), and MCI (Austria). She served as the secretary of the POMS-HK chapter and is currently the deputy program leader of the elite Computational Finance program at City University of Hong Kong.

 

This seminar is hosted by Prof. Chen, Nan.

 

Everyone is welcome to attend the talk!

 

 

 

Venue: Room 513,

      William M.W. Mong Engineering Building (ERB),

      The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

 

SEEM-5202 Website: http://seminar.se.cuhk.edu.hk

Email: seem5202@se.cuhk.edu.hk