Inconsistent Pricing Research Articles

Pre-Owned ICE car market: A boon to Middle income groups in times of transition to EVs & Sustainability

The current study aims to evaluate if middle-income households could make use of the used car resale market as a viable option during the switch to EVs and sustainability. Convenience sampling is used to gather data from 112 respondents, and techniques like SPSS and regression analysis are then used to better understand the results. The findings indicate a positive relationship between used cars and the transitional period. The availability of replacement parts, after- sales support, model, shape, engine capacity, and other criteria are positively correlated with the transition phase, with cost and regulatory restrictions having a significant impact. There are several challenges and unknowns in the used ICE vehicle market, including as inconsistent pricing, a lack of trustworthy models, and concerns about the environmental impact of operating older ICE cars. To keep older cars working efficiently and safely for a longer period of time, a network of specialists and service providers that specialize in maintaining and repairing them is used.

A Shine Muscat Grape Berry Detection and Grape Cluster Compactness Estimation for Assessment of Grape Quality Based on Instance Segmentation Methods

Highlights Mask R-CNN ResNet-101 was analyzed to have the highest detection accuracy for grape berries. Grape cluster compactness is one of the important factors that determines the quality of grapes. Indicator DGC was used to intuitively calculate the compactness of grape cluster. An average error of 1.6 mm occurred with the verification of diameter estimation algorithm. Abstract. Consumption and cultivation of grapes are constantly increasing because they are known as alkaline foods, which relieve fatigue by accelerating carbohydrate metabolism in the human body. Among these grapes, a Shine Muscat doesn’t have the bitter taste of ordinary grapes, has low acidity, and has a crunchy texture, which results in growing interest in modern society. As the consumption of Shine Muscat increases, an automated process to save labor and time becomes essential. Particularly, one challenge that needs to be solved is the determination of grape quality based solely on visual evaluations by experts, which can result in inconsistent pricing for consumers. In this study, an algorithm was adopted to detect the grape berries from a bunch of single grapes by acquiring RGB images of the harvested Shine Muscat. Mask R-CNN, a convolutional neural network-based image segmentation technique, was used with various backbones to compare and evaluate the performance of each model. Results showed that Mask R-CNN ResNet 101 had the highest AP (Average Precision) value of 0.961 among all models. In addition, indexes such as the size (diameter) of each grape berry, the area of the grape on the image, and the area of the empty space that are required to find the compactness of the grape cluster are obtained. In particular, it was analyzed that the average error value (mm) and percent error (%) of the diameter estimation algorithm developed in this study were 1.60 mm and 4.79%, respectively. Keywords: Keywords., Density of Grape Cluster (DGC), Diameter estimation, Grape berry, Grape cluster compactness, Mask R-CNN, Object detection.

Pricing and sales-effort analysis of dual-channel supply chain with channel preference, cross-channel return and free riding behavior based on revenue-sharing contract

This study develops a dual-channel supply chain model composed of a retailer with capital constraints and a supplier with sufficient funds, in which the retailer can apply the trade credit financing (TCF) from the supplier. First of all, this work introduces inconsistent pricing strategy, and investigates the optimal pricing, sales-effort level decisions and profits of the dual-channel members. Then it investigates the impacts of consumer channel preference, free-riding behavior (FRB), TCF interest rate, cross-channel return (CCR) and unit contribution to the supplier of the CCR products on the optimal sales-effort level, optimal pricing decisions and the profits of each member under the decentralized and centralized decisions, respectively. To reduce the conflict between the two channels, this research proposes a supplier-revenue sharing contract to coordinate the members so as to achieve the win-win performance with the global optimal supply chain profit. Furthermore, this study uses numerical analysis to test the feasibility of the model and conduct sensitivity analysis. The further results are concluded as follows. (1) Supplier's revenue-sharing contract can well coordinate the dual-channel supply chain with TCF, and achieve the win-win performance with the inconsistent pricing strategy. (2) Under the centralized decision, the overall supply chain profit will have a significant increase with a higher offline-channel preference proportion. (3) The growth of the free-riding coefficient will reduce the overall supply chain profit under both decentralized and centralized decisions when consumers prefer the offline channel, but will increase the centralized overall profit when consumer prefer the online channel. (4) Under the decentralized decision, the online channel's profit will go up and the offline channel's profit will go down when the TCF interest rate increase. (5) Under the decentralized decision, the overall supply chain profit can achieve the maximum by setting a lower unit contribution to the supplier of the CCR products if consumers prefer CCR service. Finally, this work indicates some managerial implications, and proposes some issues for future research.

Factors Influencing Housing Purchase Decision

House is among the essentials for human beings, which also functions as a protection and sustenance for household living. Although awning a “dream home” is the most desired life goal of individuals, it takes various aspects into account. Furthermore, provided that housing market results are based on diverse factors, this article attempts to identify and analyse the elements impacting a buyer’s housing purchase decision. However, the remaining unpurchased residential units in the nation are the results of inconsistent pricing, less appealing and other several factors. Generally, the government and private developers must identify primary elements influencing house purchase, prevent abandoned projects, guarantee the successful operation of projects, and fulfil the homeowners’ needs for the long term. Notably, this article is beneficial as a reference for future projects by researchers, developers, the government, and other professionals related to the housing industry.

Multichannel presence, boon or curse?: A comparison in price, loyalty, regret, and disappointment

Despite the many advantages of multichannel retail, this paper raises certain issues that may pose various pitfalls to the retailer. We focus on how varying the price and loyalty conditions may instigate complex emotional responses that can adversely affect the retailer. We adopt a multi-method approach across three studies, combining facial expression analysis (Study 1), scenario-based experiments, and a self-reported survey (Studies 2 & 3). Our findings show how inconsistent pricing in online and offline stores influences consumers’ regret and disappointment, which in turn impact their post-purchase behaviours of returning or retaining the product. The research contributes both theoretically and managerially by delving into the emotional responses of consumers to promotional discrepancies in multichannel retail.

Impact of green retail operations on the profit of the manufacturer and the retailer under different pricing strategies

The increasing customer awareness of environmental sustainability has motivated retailers to engage in green practices. In this paper, we consider a retailer involved in green retailing operations under a dual-channel supply chain framework under which the manufacturer is selling through an e-marketplace and a retailer. We investigate the impact of green retailing operations on the profit of the supply chain members for consistent pricing strategy and inconsistent pricing strategy using a non-linear demand function. We resort to a bi-level genetic algorithm for the solutions. Through a numerical example, we have quantified the profit of the chain members and assessed the impact of the retailer’s engagement in green retail operations on the profit of the chain members. We have also carried out a sensitivity analysis of the profit of the chain members for the rapidly evolving customer preference for e-marketplace. From the numerical illustration, we found that (1) it is beneficial for the retailer to engage in green retail operations irrespective of the pricing strategy (2) retailer’s engagement in green retail operations reduces the profit of the manufacturer regardless of the pricing strategy of the retailer.

The effects of BOPS implementation under different pricing strategies in omnichannel retailing

Many retailers have recently implemented buy online and pick up in store (BOPS) by integrating their online and offline channels. In this paper, considering a retailer who sells products through both online and offline channels, we develop a theoretical model to study the effects of BOPS adoption. Using our model, we first analyze how adoption of BOPS affects a retailer’s optimal prices, total demand and profit under consistent and inconsistent pricing strategies where a retailer employs the same pricing strategy both before and after BOPS implementation. We then conduct a comparative analysis of the two pricing strategies, discussing which one is most profitable to the retailer. Subsequently, we analyze the scenario where a retailer uses consistent pricing before BOPS adoption and inconsistent pricing afterwards and the scenario where a retailer uses inconsistent pricing before BOPS adoption and consistent pricing afterwards. We conduct numerical studies to obtain insights on when BOPS is most advantageous and which pricing strategy is better to use. Our study results show that BOPS is not always beneficial to the retailer, depending on the unit operating cost and customer hassle cost in the BOPS channel and the cross-selling profit. We also identify under what conditions a retailer is better off under different scenarios. Moreover, we find that BOPS is more beneficial to the retailer under inconsistent pricing especially when the unit operating cost in the BOPS channel is lower.

Pricing options with exponential Lévy neural network

In this paper, we propose the exponential Lévy neural network (ELNN) for option pricing, which is a new non-parametric exponential Lévy model using artificial neural networks (ANN). The ELNN fully integrates the ANNs with the exponential Lévy model, a conventional pricing model. So, the ELNN can improve ANN-based models to avoid several essential issues such as unacceptable outcomes and inconsistent pricing of over-the-counter products. Moreover, the ELNN is the first applicable non-parametric exponential Lévy model by virtue of outstanding researches on optimization in the field of ANN. The existing non-parametric models are rather not robust for application in practice. The empirical tests with S&P 500 option prices show that the ELNN fits the data better than two parametric exp-Lévy models and its estimates are less overfit than another network-based model.

Revenue Management Delivers Significant Revenue Lift for Holiday Retirement

Holiday Retirement (Holiday), the second-largest senior-housing operator in the United States, has over 300 facilities and an annual revenue of approximately $1 billion. Holiday partnered with Prorize to replace its outdated pricing model with a new revenue management system to increase revenue and improve customer satisfaction. Holiday’s previous inconsistent pricing structure resulted in continual price negotiations between corporate and local staff, and between local staff and customers, and led to revenue loss and negative customer experiences. By implementing an innovative revenue management system similar to those traditionally used in the travel and hospitality industries, Holiday has increased its revenue from new rentals by $88 million, or approximately nine percent, since it fully deployed the state-of-the-art system in 2014.

Self-pickup or door-to-door: The impact of self-pickup service on e-tailers

Bearing heavy burden on logistics costs, e-tailers in China recently allow consumers to pick up packages themselves at the designated sites. This essay develops a stylized model based on Hotelling Model and study how consistent and inconsistent pricing strategies vary with e-tailer’s profit and consumer’s purchase decisions. The analysis demonstrates that adding self-pickup scenario avails e-tailer to obtain more profits, and e-tailer performs better when setting price differentiation for two scenarios.

CAPM applications for appropriate stock pricing – impact of speculation companies

Research on the pricing of stocks listed on the Polish market shows a contradiction with the classic CAPM. The results of these studies are consistent with the results carried out on other developed markets. The reasons for inconsistent pricing are not known; this is the main objective of this work. It is a continuation of the authors’ previous work on the impact of speculation and penny stocks on the pricing in light of the ICAPM. Despite the scientific justifications for pricing in light of the ICAPM, a common estimate of the capital cost for companies is still performed on the basis of the classic CAPM. It has been conjectured that speculative stocks contribute to incompatible pricing in light of the CAPM. The elimination of speculative stocks would allow for the proper estimate of the cost of capital without the need of complicated and laborious ICAPM applications. The research is conducted on the basis of stocks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange from 1995 through 2012. The tested period is divided into two separate sub-periods: 1995–2005 (the years preceding Poland’s accession to the EU) and 2005–12 (the years of Poland’s membership in the EU). The analyzed stocks are grouped into quintile portfolios according to two variants. The pricing tests are carried out in three modes. In Mode, 1 all listed stocks are analyzed. In Modes 2 and 3, speculative stocks are excluded from the study. The research results prove the validity of the adopted conjectures.

Alternative Explanations to the Inconsistent Bond Pricing

This study proposes two rational models to reconcile the enigma regarding the inconsistent bond pricing that results among bonds with the same ratings. First, we apply a nonlinear utility function to the expected utility theory and observe different expected utilities for senior bonds and subordinated bonds with the same bond rating. Second, we implement the cumulative prospect theory to demonstrate that the inconsistency occurs when the effect on the convexity of the value function dominates the effect on the overweightness of the weighting function. The two models demonstrate that rather than using the notching policy to explain bond pricing, the inconsistent bond pricing can exist under rational market conditions.

Inconsistent Bond Pricing in a Rational Market

This study proposes two rational models to reconcile the enigma regarding the inconsistent bond pricing that results among bonds with the same ratings. First, we apply a nonlinear utility function to the expected utility theory and observe different expected utilities for senior bonds and subordinated bonds with the same bond rating. Second, we implement the cumulative prospect theory to demonstrate that the inconsistency occurs when the effect on the convexity of the value function dominates the effect on the overweightness of the weighting function. The two models demonstrate that rather than using the notching policy to explain bond pricing, the inconsistent bond pricing can exist under rational market conditions.

The impact of speculation on the pricing of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in light of the ICAPM

Research carried out over recent years shows that speculative stock are the reason for inconsistent pricing of stock with the classic CAPM. The present work is an attempt to explain the impact of speculative stock on pricing in light of the ICAPM. The study is conducted using stocks quoted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) in 1995–2012. The systematic risk and risk prices components are simulated by two chosen multifactor applications, with different procedures of portfolio construction. The investigated stocks are classified into quaintile portfolios according to established procedures. It has been assumed that both speculative stocks and improper algorithm for the test portfolios sorting contribute to inconsistent stock pricing in light of the ICAPM. As a result, tests are carried out in three modes. All WSE stocks are analyzed in mode 1. In modes 2 and 3 speculative stocks are excluded from the study. The analysis indicate that the results are in line with the extended conjectures.

The Impact Of Penny Stocks On The Pricing Of Companies Listed On The Warsaw Stock Exchange In Light Of The CAPM

Abstract Oryginality and objective – Research on the pricing of stocks listed on developed markets shows inexplicable deviation from the pricing that could be observed with CAPM validity. A similar anomaly is found on the Polish market. Reasons for inconsistent pricing with CAPM are unknown, and they are the main objective of this research. Method – The study is conducted using stocks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 1995–2012. Quintile stock portfolios are formed on the basis of strategies widely used by investors. The study is carried out in several modes. In the subsequent modes penny stocks with the market values below 0.5, 1.5, 5.0 and 15.0 PLN are eliminated. Results – It is conjectured that both penny stocks and improper procedures for the test portfolios forming contribute to inconsistent stock pricing in light of the CAPM. The studies show that results are in line with the extended conjectures. Also, study results indicate that speculative stocks are mostly penny stocks, however, it is not possible to explicitly state that penny stock are speculative.

Pricing barrier stock options with discrete dividends by approximating analytical formulae

Deriving accurate analytical formulas for pricing stock options with discrete dividend payouts is a hard problem even for the simplest vanilla options. This is because the falls in the stock price process due to discrete dividend payouts will significantly increase the mathematical difficulty in pricing the option. On the other hand, much literature uses other dividend settings to simplify the difficulty, but these settings may produce inconsistent pricing results. This paper derives accurate approximating formulae for pricing a popular path-dependent option, the barrier stock option, with discrete dividend payouts. The fall in stock price due to dividend payout at an exdividend date is approximated by an accumulated price decrement due to a continuous dividend yield up to time . Thus, the stock price process prior to time and after time can be separately modelled by two different lognormal-diffusive stock processes which help us to easily derive analytical pricing formulae. Numerical experiments suggest that our formulae provide more accurate and coherent pricing results than other approximation formulae. Our formulae are also robust under extreme cases, like the high volatility (of the stock price) case. Besides, our formulae also extend the applicability of the first-passage model (a type of structural credit risk model) to measure how the firm’s payout influences its financial status and the credit qualities of other outstanding debts.

Fraudulent Role of nFTK(2007) in Pension Funds Evaluation

This paper shows that the new financial regulation introduced in 2007 in the Netherlands, the so-called nieuw Financieel Toetsings Kader (nFTK), has several basic flaws. The nFTK evaluation cannot be trusted. The results are misleading and must not be used for policy decisions. 'Funding problems' of pension funds are exaggerated, and mainly caused by the methodology itself – the nFTK 'funding ratios' may fall even at rising asset values and constant nominal liabilities. The solvency is systemically understated at economic downturns. An artificially imposed dependence of liabilities on interest rates results in false swings of funding ratios and baseless uncertainties around pension funds. Not tradable pension liabilities cannot be priced by riskless rates by definition: unknown liquidity and model risks make ‘risk-free evaluations’ inappropriate. We show the market liability defined by nFTK rules cannot be funded by definition and funding ratios will be insufficient by default, unless contributors pay premiums for pension funds taking risks, instead of being rewarded. We prove the nFTK market liability and funding ratios are irrelevant for the solvency if actuarial discount rates are used to calculate contributions. Hence the nFTK cannot test the solvency. The ability of pension funds to meet obligations depends only on current asset value and its growth. We argue the solvency control must be based on actual performance of pension funds. It is crucial that the discount rate determining the level of contributions do not exceed the actual rate of asset returns. A proxy to liability discount rates is an average rate of pension fund returns on the duration of liabilities. Inconsistent rules and improper risk-free pricing of liabilities lead to devastating consequences for participants of definite benefit pension funds. We show that the solvency of pension funds was underestimated in 2011 by at least 15%.