报告题目：Surplus Food Retailing with Pay-What-You-Want Pricing

报 告 人：林熙

报告时间：2026年4月15日（星期三），14:00-15：30

报告地点：明哲楼517

主办单位：东北财经大学现代供应链管理研究院

【报告人简介】

林熙，华中科技大学管理学院供应链管理与系统工程系讲师。先后获得加州大学洛杉矶分校应用数学学士、北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校统计与运筹学硕士，以及加州大学尔湾分校管理学博士。他的研究聚焦于新兴科技在商业领域的应用，重点关注电子商务、农业和社会责任运营等应用领域。他的研究成果发表在 POM 等国际期刊。

【摘要】

Around 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted globally each year, accounting for about one-third of all food produced for human consumption; nevertheless, a substantial portion of the global population faces moderate or severe food insecurity, indicating a significant disparity in food distribution. Food donation, particularly at the retail level, has become an important approach to recovering surplus but edible food. In addition to traditional donation channels, food waste supermarkets—retail outlets selling donated food at low prices—have gained traction. These outlets adopt either posted pricing or the more flexible "pay-what-youwant" (PWYW) model, the latter of which is often advocated for its social and environmental benefits. However, it remains unclear whether PWYW can consistently deliver such benefits. This study develops a game-theoretic model to analyze the interplay between a regular retailer’s procurement decision, consumer purchase behavior, and the impact of different pricing schemes. We show that the difference in procurement quantities between the two pricing schemes is driven by consumer characteristics, such as the size of the food-insecure population and their sensitivity to advantageous inequality. Under PWYW, moderate sensitivity may lead to higher procurement and increased food waste, while low or high sensitivity may result in lower procurement and reduced food access.

Overall, our study indicates that the common belief that PWYW can reduce food waste and improve access for the food-insecure community simultaneously does not always hold: depending on consumer characteristics, there are cases where the environmental benefit comes at the expense of the social benefit, and vice versa.