Drip pricing and market competition --- experimental evidence

水滴定价是指企业将价格分成几个部分，并按顺序将这些价格部分呈现给消费者的策略。近年来，这种定价技术的重要性和应用有所增加，特别是在互联网商务中。这个项目的目的是分析关于滴漏定价的市场行为，与现有的研究相比，重点在于市场视角和对所有市场参与者（公司和消费者）的影响。我们提出了一种实验方法来研究市场因素在受控环境中的影响。在这些实验中，公司方和需求方都将由实验室受试者代表。该项目包括两个子项目。在子项目一中，我们首先考察水滴定价如何影响市场参与者。我们还将分析市场竞争的激烈程度对水滴定价的影响。为此目的，采用了实验室实验，其中企业可能采用不同的定价技术。在子项目二中，重点是对竞争和消费者政策的影响。我们分析了市场当局是否应该干预和限制滴水定价的使用，如果是的话，市场当局应该如何干预和限制滴水定价。为此，我们还提出了一个实验设置，以模拟不同政策限制（关于价格组成部分的数量和数量）对企业行为和滴水定价使用的影响。

Drip pricing refers to the strategy by firms to partition the price into several components and present these price components to consumers in a sequential order. In recent years, the importance and application of this pricing technique has increased, in particular in Internet commerce.The aim of this project is to analyse the market behaviour regarding drip pricing where, in contrast to existing research, the focus lies on a market perspective and the implications for all market participants (firms and consumers). We propose an experimental approach to study the effects of market factors in a controlled environment. In those experiments, both the firm side as well as the demand side will be represented by laboratory subjects.The project comprises two sub-projects. In sub-project I, we start by examining how drip pricing affects market participants. We will also analyse the effects of the intensity of market competition on the use of drip pricing. For this purpose, laboratory experiments in which firms may employ different pricing techniques are employed.In sub-project II, the focus lies on the implications for competition and consumer policy. We analyse whether and, if so, how market authorities should intervene and restrict the use of drip pricing. For this purpose, we also propose an experimental setup to simulate the effects of different policy restrictions (regarding the number and the amount of price components) on firm behaviour and the use of drip pricing.