We analyze the strategic behavior of firms when demand is determined by a rule of thumb behavior of consumers. We assume consumer dynamics where individual consumers follow simple behavioral decision rules governed by imitation and habit as suggested in consumer research. On this basis, we...

We study price dynamics in a service market environment where identical service providers dynamically reset their prices to price discriminate informed and uninformed consumers. A semi-Markovian game model for dynamic pricing is developed and a new multi-time scale actor-critic algorithm is...

Problem definition: This paper addresses the question -- hotly debated in competition regulation circles -- whether or not self-learning algorithms can learn to collude instead of compete against each other, without violating existing competition law. Methodology/results: We construct a price...

Recent experimental simulations have shown that autonomous pricing algorithms are able to learn collusive behavior and thus charge supra-competitive prices without being explicitly programmed to do so. These simulations assume, however, that both firms employ the identical price-setting...

Despite widespread use in online transactions, rating systems only provide summary statistics of buyers' diverse opinions at best. To investigate the consequences of this coarse form of information aggregation, we consider a dynamic lemons market in which buyers share their evaluations...

This paper studies dynamic price competition over two periods between two firms selling differentiated durable goods to two buyers who are privately informed about their types, but have valuations of the two goods dependent on the other buyer's type. The firms' pricing strategy in period 1 must...