文献类型： 外文期刊

作者： Yang, Luyi ¹ ; Wang, Zhongbin ² ; Cui, Shiliang ³ ;

作者机构： 1.Univ Calif Berkeley, Haas Sch Business, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA

2.Nankai Univ, Business Sch, Tianjin 300071, Peoples R China

3.Georgetown Univ, McDonough Sch Business, Washington, DC 20057 USA

关键词： service operations; queue scalping; pricing; priority; speculation

期刊名称：MANAGEMENT SCIENCE （ 影响因子：4.883； 五年影响因子：6.619 ）

ISSN： 0025-1909

年卷期： 2021 年 67 卷 11 期

页码：

收录情况： SCI

摘要： Recent years have witnessed the rise of queue scalping in congestion-prone service systems. A queue scalper has no material interest in the primary service but proactively enters the queue in hopes of selling his spot later. This paper develops a queueing-game-theoretic model of queue scalping and generates the following insights. First, we find that queues with either a very small or very large demand volume may be immune to scalping, whereas queues with a nonextreme demand volume may attract the most scalpers. Second, in the short run, when capacity is fixed, the presence of queue scalping often increases social welfare and can increase or reduce system throughput, but it tends to reduce consumer surplus. Third, in the long run, the presence of queue scalping motivates a welfare-maximizing service provider to adjust capacity using a "pull-to-center" rule, increasing (respectively, reducing) capacity if the original capacity level is low (respectively, high). When the service provider responds by expanding capacity, the presence of queue scalping can increase social welfare, system throughput, and even consumer surplus in the long run, reversing its short-run detrimental effect on customers. Despite these potential benefits, such capacity expansion does little to mitigate scalping and may only generate more scalpers in the queue. Finally, we compare and contrast queue scalping with other common mechanisms in practice-namely, (centralized) pay-for-priority, line sitting, and callbacks.