MG4J3      Half Unit
Principles of Pricing

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

This course is not available to MSc Marketing students.

The content of the course is organised into two principal modules: (1) pricing strategy and fundamentals and (2) pricing tactics and implementation. The first module of the course covers the fundamental analytical tools, theories, and conceptual frameworks needed for price strategy formulation. Basic principles from marketing, economics, and psychology will be briefly reviewed and extended. The module provides an in-depth treatment of the role of price in the firm’s value proposition to the customer and the determination of customer response to price. The second module of the course covers pricing tactics with an emphasis on pricing in the digital domain.

30 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Students will be engaged in analysing several cases, doing numerical problems, and analysing data sets using the techniques learned in class. This will set the stage for their group project (gathering and analysing data) as well as the take-home assignment (which will involve numerical problems, case analysis, and analysing data sets). Students will be taking three short quizzes during the course of the term; these are meant to ensure a proper grasp of the concepts and tools covered in the lectures.

• The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably (2010): Nagle, Hogan, and Zale, Prentice Hall.
• Pricing Information: How to customize both the product and the price (1998): Carl Schapiro and Hal Varian, Harvard Business School Chapters.
• 'Pricing as a Strategic Capability' (2002): Mark Bergen, Shantanu Dutta, Mark Ritson, Sloan Management Review.

Project (40%)

This component of assessment includes an element of group work.

Short answer questions (45%)

Quiz (15%)

For detailed assessment information, including all deadlines and timings, please see the relevant course Moodle page. Assessment timings will be available at the start of each term.