We experimentally study the profitability of pricing mechanisms that allow customers to quote their own prices, such as Priceline.com's Name-Your-Own-Price (NYOP). Presumably firms find this sales method profit-maximizing despite the concerns that NYOP web-sites can cannibalize profit from...

Zone pricing in wholesale gasoline markets is a contentious topic in the public policy debate. Refiners contend that they use zone pricing to be competitive with local rivals. Critics claim that zone pricing benefits the oil industry and harms consumers. With a controlled experiment, we...

This paper develops and tests implications of an oligopoly-pricing model. The model predicts that during a demand expansion, the short run competitive price is a pure strategy Nash equilibrium but in a recession, firms set prices above the competitive price. Thus, price markups over the...