Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/103687 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Citation: 
[Journal:] BuR - Business Research [ISSN:] 1866-8658 [Volume:] 3 [Issue:] 1 [Publisher:] VHB - Verband der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft, German Academic Association of Business Research [Place:] Göttingen [Year:] 2010 [Pages:] 70-80
Publisher: 
VHB - Verband der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft, German Academic Association of Business Research, Göttingen
Abstract: 
For many services, consumers can choose among a range of optional tariffs that differ in their access and usage prices. Recent studies indicate that tariff-specific preferences may lead consumers to choose a tariff that does not minimize their expected billing rate. This study analyzes how tariff-specific preferences influence the responsiveness of consumers’ usage and tariff choice to changes in price. We show that consumer heterogeneity in tariff-specific preferences leads to heterogeneity in their sensitivity to price changes. Specifically, consumers with tariff-specific preferences are less sensitive to price increases of their preferred tariff than other consumers. Our results provide an additional reason why firms should offer multiple tariffs rather than a uniform nonlinear pricing plan to extract maximum consumer surplus.
Subjects: 
flat rate
flat-rate bias
nonlinear pricing
pay-per-use bias
price elasticity
pricing
tariff choice
tariff-specific preferences
three-part tariffs
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Article

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