Profit maximization with quantity discount: An application of geometric programming

Abstract

Profit maximization is an important issue to the firms that pursue the largest economic profit possible. Traditionally, profit maximization problem is solved by differentiating with respect to input prices. The total differentiation of the first-order conditions might give complicated equations difficult to handle. Different from traditional studies, this paper considers input quantity discount and employs geometric programming technique to derive the objective value for the profit-maximization problem. The geometric programming approach not only gives the global optimum solution but also provides the information that is able to discover the relationship between profit maximization and returns to scale in the solution process. No differentiation is required. Moreover, geometric programming can provide a computationally attractive view of sensitivity analysis for the changes in parameters. Examples are given to illustrate the idea proposed in this paper.