Pelican Point Financial Group’s clientele consists of two types of investors. The first type of investor makes many transactions in a given year and has a net worth of over $1.5 million. These investors seek unlimited access to investment consultants and are willing to pay up to $20,000 annually for no-fee-based transactions, or alternatively, $40 per trade. The other type of investor also has a net worth of over $1.5 million but makes few transactions each year and therefore is willing to pay $120 per trade.
As the manager of Pelican Point Financial Group, you are unable to determine whether any given individual is a high- or low-volume transaction investor. To deal with this issue, you design a self-selection mechanism that permits you to identify each type of investor. You offer two types of plans for customers with more than $1.5 million in assets: one plan has an annual maintenance fee but offers a large number of "free" transactions (call this the "Free Trade" Account); the other plan has no annual maintenance fee but charges for each transaction (call this the "Free Service" Account). Determine the specifics for each plan as listed below:
"Free Trade" Account:
Annual maintenance fee $
Number of "free" transactions
Price for each transaction in excess of the number of "free" transactions $
"Free Service" Account:
Price per transaction $