Revenue maximizing with return policy when buyers have uncertain valuations

Jun Zhang ()

International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2013, vol. 31, issue 5, 452-461

Abstract: This paper examines the optimal mechanism design problem when buyers have uncertain valuations. This uncertainty can only be resolved after the actual transactions take place and upon incurring significant post-purchase cost. We focus on two different settings regarding how the seller values a returned object (salvage value). We first study the case where the salvage value is exogenously determined. We find that the revenue maximizing mechanism is deterministic and “separable”. We illustrate that the optimal revenue can be implemented by a mechanism with a “no-questions-asked” return policy. In addition, we show that “linear return policies” are suboptimal when the hazard rates of initial estimates are monotone. We next examine the case where the salvage value is endogenously determined. We demonstrate that “separability” no longer holds and the “recall” of buyers is necessary in the optimal mechanism.

Keywords: Auctions; Mechanism design; Return policies; Uncertain valuations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D44 D82 D83 L12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718713000854
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:indorg:v:31:y:2013:i:5:p:452-461

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2013.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Industrial Organization is currently edited by P. Bajari, B. Caillaud and N. Gandal

More articles in International Journal of Industrial Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().