双垄断港口企业差别定价动因研究

Motives of Using Discrimination Pricing of Dual Monopoly Port Enterprises

在改进的Hotelling模型基础上,构建了双垄断港口企业的定价模型,研究了仅一个港口企业采用差别定价时双垄断港口企业的均衡价格、需求和利润,进而与双垄断港口企业均采用单一定价的均衡价格、需求和利润进行对比,最后用实例说明了港口企业采用差别定价策略的动机。理论研究结果表明:当两个港口企业的服务水平相同时,采用差别定价的港口企业会获得更多的市场份额和利润,因而另一个港口企业就有动机采用该定价方法;当两个港口企业的服务水平不同时,港口的位置、服务水平、内陆运费率等因素会影响港口企业采用不同的定价策略。

The competition in the port logistics services industry has intensified in China.Price wars have become a common practice for port enterprises to gain regional market share.Traditional pricing policies are losing their attractiveness to companies sourcing from port logistics service providers.In order to attract more business,port enterprises have begun adopting discriminatory pricing policies.These policies allow companies to receive different tariff discounts according to throughput,crossing hinterland,and client types.This paper constructs a pricing model for dual monopoly port enterprises based on the modified Hotelling model.We use this model to analyze the equilibrium price,demand and profit of the dual monopoly port enterprises with equilibrium pricing policy and uniform pricing policy.An example is used to demonstrate the rationale behind discrimination policy adoption by different enterprises.Our literature review discusses the discriminatory pricing and uniform pricing models.These two models can help port enterprises make better decisions on two-dimensional spatial locations,including hinterland scope,spatial location and client distribution.Hypotheses are proposed to understand the effect of these two pricing policies on market demand and profits of port enterprises.We sample three large ports in Bohai Bay to validate our hypotheses.Analysis is conducted to assess the proposed hypotheses.Our analysis results show that port enterprises should consider adopting the discriminatory pricing policy in order to gain market share and profit.In contrast,port enterprises should adopt uniform pricing policy because of specific location,service level,inland freight,etc.conditions.This study is concluded with the limitations of our findings One such limitation is that the elasticity of demand of clients is not considered in this study.Port enterprises need to make necessary adjustment to their decisions.If proper adjustment can be made,port enterprises can formulate their pricing policy in a more competitive manner to earn new business.