Optimal Bundling Strategies Under Heavy-Tailed Valuations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ibragimov, Rustam; Walden, Johan
• 署名单位: Harvard University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1100.1234
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 1963-1976
• 关键词: optimal bundling strategies; multiproduct monopolist; Vickrey auction; profit-maximizing prices; heavy-tailed valuations

摘要

We develop a framework for the optimal bundling problem of a multiproduct monopolist, who provides goods to consumers with private valuations that are random draws from a distribution with heavy tails. We show that in the Vickrey auction setting, the buyers prefer separate provision of the goods to any bundles. We also provide a complete characterization of the optimal bundling strategies for a monopolist producer, who provides goods for profit-maximizing prices. For products with low marginal costs, the seller's optimal strategy is to provide goods separately when consumers' valuations are heavy-tailed and in a single bundle when valuations are thin-tailed. These conclusions are reversed for goods with high marginal costs. For simplicity, we use a specific class of independent and identically distributed random variables, but our results can be generalized to include dependence, skewness, and the case of nonidentical one-dimensional distributions.