How to Price: A Guide to Pricing Techniques and Yield Management

by Oz Shy

Overview

Over the past four decades, business and academic economists, operations researchers, marketing scientists, and consulting firms have increased their interest and research on pricing and revenue management. This book attempts to introduce the reader to a wide variety of their research results on pricing techniques in a unified, systematic way and at varying levels of difficulty. The book contains a large number of exercises and solutions and therefore can serve as a main or supplementary course textbook, as well as a reference guidebook for pricing consultants, managers, industrial engineers, and writers of pricing software applications. Despite a moderate technical orientation, the book is accessible to readers with a limited knowledge in these fields as well as to readers who have had more training in economics. Most pricing models are first demonstrated by numerical and calculus-free examples and then extended for more technically-oriented readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521887595
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/14/2008
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	7.09(w) x 10.24(h) x 1.18(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to pricing techniques; 2. Demand and cost; 3. Basic pricing techniques; 4. Bundling and tying; 5. Multipart tariff; 6. Peak-load pricing; 7. Advance booking; 8. Refund strategies; 9. Overbooking; 10. Quality, loyalty, auctions, and advertising; 11. Tariff-choice biases and warranties; 12. Instructor and solution manual.

Editorial Reviews

"This book provides an extremely valuable introduction to 'the art of pricing'. The strength of the book lies in its judicious choice of the topics to be covered and accessibility to a wide range of audiences from advanced undergraduates to practitioners who may have limited technical knowledge. In particular, the coverage of the book on 'yield management' truly stands out, where Oz Shy offers a very elegant, intuitive, and simple presentation of dynamic pricing techniques with capacity constraints that have been widely used in the airline and hotel industries. In summary, the book is bound to be the best single source for anyone interested in this broad topic of practical importance.” - Jay Pil Choi, Michigan State University

"Oz Shy has yet again succeeded in providing an innovative and lucid exposition of a longstanding issue: how to price. The outcome is a cleverly presented toolkit for understanding yield management and pricing strategies. The comprehensible yet rigorous style, its original focus and varying levels of mathematical formalization, as well as the novel use of computer algorithms make this book an exceptionally useful instrument not only for teachers and students in economics, management, and marketing, but also for practitioners and business people." - Tomaso Duso, Social Science Research Center Berlin

"A valuable book for both students and practitioners — it will be a key reference for anyone working in the field. The author is an expert who himself has made important contributions to industrial organization." - Paul Klemperer, Oxford University

"How to Price is a coherent and straight to the point introduction to the state of the art of strategic pricing. This book is especially suitable for master's level students in economics as well as managers responsible for pricing decisions. At the targeted level the book is the first in its kind." - Staffan Ringbom, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, and HECER

"Oz Shy's book offers an up-to-date, economically sophisticated, and highly practical guide to pricing. Better pricing leads to better profits." - Hal Varian, University of California, Berkeley

"This is a must-read for all economists interested in pricing of services. It provides a wealth of exciting pricing issues and their solutions. It is accessible for undergraduates, yet exceedingly valuable to graduate economists, MBA students, practitioners and researchers. It is both a textbook and a reference for the various types of pricing. At the same time, it provides algorithms for those trying to apply the concepts in practice. Oz Shy has shown us the usefulness of applying economic concepts to pricing and provides us with fun in doing so." - Ingo Vogelsang, Boston University

From the Publisher