题目：Proportional vs. Unit Pricing: Evidence from Alibaba’s Digital Food Delivery Platform

时间：2024年4月26日10:30-12:00

地点：明德主楼734

汇报人：周晓岚（耶鲁大学经济学博士；山东大学经济学院教授）

主持人：罗茸（中国人民大学经济学院副教授）

摘要：

Using granular geospatial data from Alibaba’s digital food delivery platform in the PRC, we compare the effectiveness of proportional vs. unit pricing in the cooked food sector only, or in the fresh food sector only, or both sectors. We build a structural model to analyze the discount pricing strategies of a platform, incorporating shop price competition, intertemporal demand spillover effect at the platform level, and cross-group network effects (CNEs) of shops and riders on consumers. We find positive intertemporal demand spillover effects at the platform level. The cooked food and fresh food sectors are static substitutes but dynamic complements to each other. The CNEs of shops on consumers and delivery riders are positive, and the same-side network effects (SNEs) of shops on other shops are negative, while the magnitudes are larger for shops with higher net gross merchandise volume (GMV) in the cooked food sector. Setting a higher standard for shop entry could be beneficial for a platform. From the perspectives of both extensive margin and intensive margin, a unit price discount on the fresh food sector only is likely to be most efficient for a platform to expand its market size and boost the total net GMV. Furthermore, a unit price discount on the fresh food sector only is also likely to be most efficient for a socially-concerned platform.

个人简介：

周晓岚，山东大学经济学院教授，获耶鲁大学经济学博士学位、武汉大学经济与数学双学士学位。她的主要研究领域是产业组织经济学、微观经济学、国际贸易。她的研究成果发表于The Rand Journal of Economics，International Economic Review等。