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.     

Monopolistic third-degree price discrimination under vertical product differentiation

This paper shows in a vertical product differentiation model with variable costs of quality that monopolistic third-degree price discrimination always reduces welfare regardless of whether the quality is fixed or is endogenous. The results provide rich implications for antitrust policy.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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 dynamic model of price discrimination and inventory management at the Fulton Fish Market

We estimate a dynamic profit-maximization model of a fish wholesaler who can observe consumer characteristics, set individual prices, and thus engage in third-degree price discrimination. Simulated prices and quantities from the model exhibit the key features observed in a set of high quality transaction-level data on fish sales collected at the Fulton Fish Market. The model's predictions are then compared to the case in which the wholesaler must post a single price to all retailers. We find the added revenue the wholesaler receives from price discriminating to be small.     

Third-degree price discrimination in a short-stay accommodation industry

This article analyses the pricing in the short-stay accommodation industry in Tasmania. It utilizes a novel 2008 survey of Tasmanian short-stay accommodation firms in which business managers were asked about their perception of the elasticity of their firm’s demand in each of the market segments that their firm supplied. This direct observation of elasticity allows us to demonstrate that firms’ price across market segments act in a manner consistent with the Lerner index and the theory of third-degree price discrimination. Further we show, in line with expectations based on the literature, that increased quality of the accommodation lowers the elasticity of demand, while the elasticity of demand is higher in winter. Surprisingly, Internet sales channels do not exhibit a different elasticity of demand to other sales channels.     

Consumer poaching,brand switching,and price transparency

This paper addresses price transparency on the consumer side in markets with behavioral price discrimination which feature welfare reducing brand switching. When long-term contracts are not available, an increase in transparency intensifies competition, lowers prices and profits, reduces brand switching and benefits consumers and welfare. With long-term contracts, an increase in transparency reduces the use of long-term contracts, leading to more brand switching and a welfare loss. Otherwise, the results are the same as without long-term contracts.     

Imperfect price discrimination, market structure, and efficiency

Abstract.  We introduce a flexible third‐degree price discrimination framework by modeling the information firms possess about consumers' locations (preferences) on the Salop circle as a partition. Higher information quality is translated into a partition refinement. In the limit, we obtain the perfect price discrimination paradigm. We show that the free‐entry equilibrium number of firms exhibits a U‐shape as a function of the quality of information. This implies that imperfect price discrimination generates the most efficient free‐entry outcome. JEL classification: D43, L11, L43     

Consumer flexibility,data quality and location choice

We analyze firms’ location choices in a Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity, along addresses and transport cost parameters (flexibility). Firms can price discriminate based on perfect data on consumer addresses and (possibly) imperfect data on consumer flexibility. We show that firms’ location choices depend on how strongly consumers differ in flexibility. Precisely, when consumers are relatively homogeneous, equilibrium locations are socially optimal regardless of the quality of customer flexibility data. However, when consumers are relatively differentiated, firms make socially optimal location choices only when customer flexibility data becomes perfect. These results are driven by the optimal strategy of a firm on its turf, monopolization or market-sharing, which in turn depends on consumer heterogeneity in flexibility. Our analysis is motivated by the availability of customer data, which allows firms to practice third-degree price discrimination based on both consumer characteristics relevant in spatial competition, addresses and transport cost parameters.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Double marginalization and cost pass-through: Weyl–Fabinger and Cowan meet Spengler and Bresnahan–Reiss

Consider the classical double marginalization problem of single-product successive monopolies. We show that the ratio of the cost pass-through at the final sale relative to that at the wholesale level is characterized by the curvature of inverse demand in the final market. We also apply Cowan’s (2012) method, which utilizes the idea of pass-through in an analysis of third-degree price discrimination, to compare consumer surplus under vertical integration and separation.     

Deregulating Network Industries: Dealing with Price-quality Tradeoffs

This paper examines the effects of introducing competition into monopolized network industries on prices and infrastructure quality. Analyzing a model with reduced-form demand, we first show that deregulating an integrated monopoly cannot simultaneously decrease the retail price and increase infrastructure quality. Second, we derive conditions under which reducing both retail price and infrastructure quality relative to the integrated monopoly outcome increases welfare. Third, we argue that restructuring and setting very low access charges may yield welfare losses, as infrastructure investment is undermined. We provide an extensive analysis of the linear demand model and discuss policy implications.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF THE QUANTITY‐QUALITY BALANCE IN MONOPOLY*

This paper describes how a monopolist manipulates the balance of quantity and quality in order to increase revenue when its customers treat quantity and quality as substitutes. This ‘skewing’ of quality depends on the characteristics of customer's demand for quality. Customers differ in demand for quality, because they differ in either (i) their preferences and/or (ii) their time cost per unit. The monopolist is constrained to supply the same quality of good to all customers. The price and quality per unit are described under the assumption the monopolist (i) profit maximises; (ii) maximises social welfare subject to a profit constraint. The determinants of the skewing of quantity and quality are found under third‐degree price discrimination and uniform pricing.     

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。     

Using Field Experiments to Change the Template of How We Teach Economics

In this article, the author explains why field experiments can improve what we teach and how we teach economics. Economists no longer operate as passive observers of economic phenomena. Instead, they participate actively in the research process by collecting data from field experiments to investigate the economics of everyday life. This change can be shown to students by presenting them with evidence from field experiments. Field experiments related to factor markets, behavioral economics, and discrimination are presented to explain how this approach works across different economic content. The three questions that are highlighted are the following: (1) Why do women get paid less than men in labor markets? (2) How can we use behavioral economics to motivate teachers? (3) What seven words can end third-degree price discrimination?