价格歧视战略与福利效应分析

在完全竞争市场条件下 ,竞争均衡可实现帕累托最优效率。垄断市场一般很难提供价格等于边际成本的产量水平 ,其产量与价格选择对社会来说不是最优的。垄断厂商以内生范畴和外生范畴为基础对消费者进行分类 ,使得价格歧视成为一种可行战略。由于定价策略存在差异 ,不同类型的价格歧视便具有不同的福利效应。     

Third‐degree price discrimination in the presence of congestion externality

This paper analyzes third‐degree price discrimination of a monopoly airline in the presence of congestion externality when all markets are served. The model features the business‐passenger and leisure‐passenger markets where business passengers exhibit a higher time valuation, and a less price‐elastic demand, than leisure passengers. Our main result is the identification of the time‐valuation effect of price discrimination, which can work in the opposite direction as the well‐known output effect on welfare. This time‐valuation effect clearly explains why discriminating prices can improve welfare even when this is associated with a reduction in aggregate output.     

The cost effect in third-degree price discrimination

In the presence of a non-constant marginal cost and demand uncertainty, we show that an output increase is no longer a necessary condition for welfare to increase following the introduction of third-degree price discrimination. We thus highlight the existence of an effect that might offset the well known output and misallocation effects of price discrimination. We propose a specific example where this is indeed the case.     

Complementarity of willingness to pay and cost heterogeneity under vertical product differentiation: A welfare analysis

Due to the fact that a consumer’s willingness to pay differs between segments, many unregulated industries are price constrained, although the specific costs of market segments also differ. If the product quality is endogenously chosen, we find that third-degree price discrimination increases welfare if a sufficiently pronounced complementarity between the willingness to pay and variable cost heterogeneity is given. This is due to the fact that the monopolist’s incentive for employing a pronounced price dispersion strategy is directly influenced by the consumers’ willingness to pay for the quality of a product. With endogenous product quality, the paper shows that the standard welfare result of third-degree price discrimination compared to uniform monopoly pricing (e.g. that total welfare and consumer surplus both fall if total output does not rise) can be only reversed given the complementarity is sufficiently pronounced.     

Third-degree price discrimination,quality choice,and welfare

Employing an endogenous quality choice model, we reconsider the effect on welfare of monopolistic third-degree price discrimination. We prove that price discrimination always enhances welfare, mainly because the quality improvement owing to price discrimination increases consumer surplus. Moreover, we show that third-degree price discrimination benefits all parties, including consumers in the higher priced market if the preference differences between markets are sufficiently large.     

Third-Degree Price Discrimination in the Presence of Subsidies

Abstract. According to a classical result, a move from uniform pricing to third-degree price discrimination only improves welfare if total output increases. In this paper I show that the classical result fails in the presence of subsidies. This finding appears to be relevant for the pharmaceutical sector where a consumer pays a fraction of the actual drug price due to health insurance coverage.     

Monopoly and the choice of product characteristics

Monopoly firms producing large, indivisible goods may be able to effect perfect price discrimination by charging an all-or-none implicit price for each product characteristic. In that case, a monopolist will provide the same vector of product characteristics (i.e., the same product ‘quality’) as will a competitive industry; and, perhaps more surprisingly, produce the same quantity of the good. With all-or-none pricing, monopoly power leads to a higher product price, but no change in product quality or output.     

Seasonality,price discrimination,and welfare

We discuss a potential limitation to a widely accepted result, namely that an output increase is a necessary condition for welfare to increase with price discrimination. We use a theoretical model to show that the existence of seasonal demand fluctuations may allow for a simultaneous reduction in average output and increase in average welfare. We also discuss a number of extensions of our basic model.     

Foreign output and price shocks and macroeconomic activity in Korea

This paper examines the effects of foreign output and price shocks on output and the price level in Korea. The framework is a nine variable VAR model which includes output, price level, interest rate, real exchange rate, money supply, government expenditures, government debt, and foreign output and price variables. Foreign output and price effects are evaluated through computation of variance decompositions and impulse response functions. The variance decompositions indicate significant effects of foreign output on domestic output and significant effects of foreign prices on domestic output and the price level. The impulse response functions indicate positive short-run effects of foreign output on domestic output but insignificant effects on the price level while foreign price shocks have significant negative effects on output and significant positive effects on the price level for approximately two years. The results indicate the importance of including foreign shock variables when modeling the Korean economy.     

Price discrimination via information provision

We study price discrimination where different prices are offered as a bundle with different levels of information about a product. The seller’s price discrimination induces high valuation buyers to purchase a good without information and low valuation buyers to purchase with information. Our analysis highlights several interesting results about price discrimination: (i) the seller’s choice of information provision is the combination of full information and no information, (ii) products can be cheaper without information provision than with information provision, (iii) as a result of price discrimination, prices can be more dispersed as buyers’ valuations become largely similar, and (iv) the high valuation buyers purchase a damaged good and may earn negative surplus. Furthermore, we investigate under which circumstances price discrimination is more profitable than uniform pricing. We show that a decline in transportation costs which facilitate price discrimination can be welfare reducing.     

The effects of information and competition on racial discrimination: Evidence from a field experiment

We study racial discrimination by simultaneously selling identical products on eBay in pairs of auctions posted under different racially identifying names. We detect significant price differences, which are indicative of in-group biases. White names receive higher prices for distinctively white products, and black names receive higher prices for distinctively black products. But price differences only emerge for sellers who have low eBay feedback scores in less competitive markets. Because the price differences dissipate as sellers accumulate credible reputations, the patterns in the data are indicative of statistical discrimination. Overall, the results suggest that mechanisms designed to reduce informational asymmetries and increased competition are both effective at reducing discrimination in online auctions.     

Price discrimination in Cournot–Nash oligopoly

The standard Cournot–Nash oligopoly model is extended to encompass price discrimination, where firms charge more than one price for the same product based on willingness to pay. In the linear, symmetric case, the average price is not dependent on the extent of price discrimination.     

Price discrimination: A classroom experiment

In this article, the authors describe a classroom experiment aimed at familiarizing students with different types of price discrimination (first-, second-, and third-degree price discrimination). During the experiment, the students were asked to decide what tariffs to set as monopolists for each of the price discrimination scenarios under consideration. The objective was to allow the students to work empirically, through trial and error, selecting tariffs for each type of discrimination that would maximize a monopolistic entrepreneur's profits. The purpose of the exercise also was to enable the students to differentiate each type of price discrimination and to set tariffs in each case, as well to help them understand the repercussions in terms of welfare for each type of price discrimination.     

DOES BEHAVIOUR‐BASED PRICE DISCRIMINATION FOSTER FIRMS’ DIFFERENTIATION?

We study the impact of behaviour‐based price discrimination on the incentive of the firms to differentiate their products. We consider both ‘standard’ and ‘extreme’ behaviour‐based price discrimination: the latter always reduces the incentive to differentiate with respect to uniform pricing, while the former fosters differentiation if the consumers are sufficiently forward‐looking and/or the firms are sufficiently myopic.     

双边市场、不完全信息与二级价格歧视

本文研究了双边市场二级价格歧视问题。本文构建了包括广告商、消费者、垄断平台在内的两阶段博弈模型，研究了在最优与次优情况下平台的定价机制，分析了二级价格歧视对平台利润、社会福利等的影响。研究表明：（1）“顶部无扭曲”或“底部无扭曲”并不严格成立；（2）平台对观众提供的节目质量、广告插播量均可能出现类型逆转的情况；（3）二级价格歧视会增加社会总福利；（4）“会员制”是平台可能的占优定价机制之一。     

Teaching Third-Degree Price Discrimination

Abstract: Third-degree price discrimination is taught in almost every intermediate microeconomics class. The theory, geometry, and the algebra behind the concept are simple, and the phenomenon is commonly associated with the sale of many of the goods and services used frequently by students. Classroom discussion is usually vibrant as students can relate their experiences of being on the receiving end of third-degree price discrimination, usually to their advantage. However, the precision of the language used in the exposition of the theory in textbooks is generally less precise than one would hope for, leading students to confuse slope and elasticity. The authors ask textbook writers to provide greater precision in their explanation of why differing elasticities are associated with the prices paid by two (or more) distinct groups of buyers facing third-degree price discrimination.     

A comparison of different contract forms for consumers with switching costs and changed preferences

This paper compares three contract forms, including short-term contract with price discrimination, short-term contract without price discrimination, and long-term contract with price commitment for consumers with switching costs and changed preferences. We find that long-term contract generates the largest profit for firms. Moreover, we find that switching costs make the market more competitive when consumers have changed preferences, and the higher the switching costs, the more competitive. Our theory combines linear-city duopoly and switching-cost model and the results are consistent with literature, for example price commitment is valuable. Our findings shed light on the practice of different forms of dynamic pricing in various industries including telecommunication industry and airline industry.     

PRICE DISCRIMINATION AT THE LINKS

This paper reports on an econometric analysis of the pricing structures at 46 public access golf courses in the San Francisco area. Comparisons among several attempts to get a generic measure of price discrimination suggest that the standard deviation of the prices charged is the best measure. Using narrowly cast measures of price discrimination, the paper successfully distinguishes among several different types. Measures of price discrimination can be significant regressors, yet the overwhelming majority of existing work excludes such a variable, leading to biased estimates of the other parameters.     

Upstream and downstream pollution taxations in vertically related markets with imperfect competition

When two markets are vertically related, the government can control pollution at the upstream as well as the downstream market levels. This paper employs the stylized model of input price discrimination and compares the effectiveness of upstream and downstream pollution taxations. We consider the situation in which downstream firms have heterogeneous abatement technologies and an upstream monopolist performs input price discrimination against them. In order to mitigate pollution, the government imposes input tax on the intermediate inputs and emission tax on the pollutant. We show that the degree of input price discrimination decreases with a rise in the input tax and increases with a rise in the emission tax. We further examine the effect of a green tax reform in which the government changes the source of taxation from input tax to emission tax. We argue that although this green tax reform may reduce the tax revenue of the government, it will certainly increase social welfare.      

Pricing behavior of the budget-constrained public enterprise

By assuming that a budget-constrained multiproduct public enterprise chooses prices with the goal of maximizing its budget, its revenue or its output, specific pricing rules can be derived. Rather than overstating demand elasticities and then pricing like a monopolist, as a budget-constrained welfare-maximizing firm would do, the enterprise pursuing one of these alternative goals is shown to understate marginal cost and then price like a monopolist. Non-optimal price discrimination and even cross subsidization may result. The outcome tends to be more perverse when statutory entry barriers protect some markets of the enterprise. In its pricing, the U.S. Postal Service has shown some of the signs of such other-than-welfare-maximizing pricing behavior.