Co-authored Paper by Professors Li Changying and Zhang Jianhu Officially Published in International Authoritative Journal Canadian Journal of Economics

Recently, the co-authored academic paper Behaviour-based pricing with overlapping ownership by Professors Li Changying and Zhang Jianhu from the School of Economics, Shandong University, was officially published in Canadian Journal of Economics, an international authoritative journal. Professor Li Changying is the first author, and Professor Zhang Jianhu is the corresponding author.

Cross-ownership among enterprises is common in reality, widely existing in industries such as aviation, insurance, and telecommunications, and further complicating market competition through institutional investors' shareholding behaviors. At the same time, behavior-based pricing strategies—where enterprises implement differentiated pricing for different customer groups based on consumers' purchase history or preferences—have become common practices in many industries. However, the impact of this strategy on corporate profits, consumer surplus, and social welfare remains controversial. By introducing the factor of cross-ownership, this paper explores the economic effects of behavior-based pricing strategies when cross-ownership exists among enterprises. The study finds that when the level of cross-ownership is high, behavior-based pricing strategies can not only increase corporate profits by reducing demand elasticity and reducing customer churn, but also may lead enterprises to charge higher prices for new and existing customers. However, the impact of this strategy on consumer surplus and social welfare is complex: behavior-based pricing may increase consumer surplus when the level of cross-ownership is low, but both consumer surplus and social welfare suffer when the level of cross-ownership is high. This finding indicates that cross-ownership has important economic significance in reality, which not only affects enterprises' pricing strategies and profit levels, but also may have a profound impact on market competition and consumer welfare.

Li Changying is a Professor at the School of Economics, Shandong University, and was selected into the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University. Her research directions are industrial organization theory, international trade, and microeconomic theory and applications. She has published more than 70 papers in journals such as Journal of International Economics, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Canadian Journal of Economics, China Economic Quarterly, and The Journal of World Economy. She has presided over 1 major project of the National Social Science Fund and 2 key projects of the National Social Science Fund.

Zhang Jianhu is a Professor at the School of Economics, Shandong University, and a Young Expert of Taishan Scholar Program in Shandong Province. His research directions are platform competition, data elements and other industrial organization theory issues. He has published more than 20 academic papers in domestic and foreign journals such as International Journal of Industrial Organization, Oxford Economic Papers, Canadian Journal of Economics, and China Economic Quarterly. He has successively presided over three National Natural Science Foundation projects related to the digital economy.

Paper link:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/caje.12758