Third-Degree Price Discrimination: Apology Not Necessary

Applied work in price discrimination often treats demand curves among multiple market segments as algebraically additive. Yet the welfare effects of multi-market (third degree) price discrimination depend on how the demand segments are added. Treating demands as geometrically additive yields the well known result that discrimination absent an increase in production diminishes Marshallian surplus. But if demands are treated as algebraically additive then discrimination increases welfare over uniform pricing. Quantity is identical in the three cases, so the effect is not due to market opening. Nor is the effect due to scale economies since marginal cost is assumed constant. Profit is always greater under discrimination, so the effect is due to distributional changes in consumer surplus. The model is restricted to linear demands and constant marginal cost but can be generalized for future work and policy analysis.     

Price Discrimination and Efficient Distribution

This paper focuses on third‐degree price discrimination by an upstream firm with some degree of monopoly power. Downstream firms fall into two categories: efficient and inefficient, according to their relative costs of transforming a unit of the upstream good into a unit of final product. Under ordinary static conditions, price discrimination favors the inefficient firms, which have more elastic demands. We consider, however, the possibility that discrimination in the opposite direction can alter the downstream market structure toward greater efficiency. Discriminatory pricing, then, involves charging a higher price to the less efficient firms. Such pricing is shown to be both potentially profitable for the upstream firm and welfare improving as average consumer prices fall.     

Third-Degree Price Discrimination: Apology not Necessary _ Comment

In this comment, we note that the analysis in Lopez and Molina (2010) is subject to a number of mistakes and various unjustifiable assumptions.     

Spatial Price Discrimination and Merger: The N-Firm Case

The consequences of merger are analyzed in an N-firm model of spatial price discrimination. The merger occurs with known probability after location decisions have been made. The possibility of merger alters locations, generates inefficiency, and increases the profit of the merging firms. In the case of corner mergers, but never in the case of interior mergers, the possibility of merger may also reduce the profit of the excluded firms.     

Diagrammatic Approach to Capacity-Constrained Price Discrimination

This paper presents a diagrammatic solution to the firm's profit-maximizing price discrimination problem in the face of capacity constraints. Airlines, hotels, and other firms practice yield management, allocating fixed capacity to customer groups paying different prices. In these cases, the firm's short-run problem is not a decision about production levels, but it is one of allocating a fixed number of output units among customers. Our diagram shows that the conditions for profit-maximizing price discrimination are very different under these circumstances than in the standard model in which the firm is not constrained by capacity.     

Consequences of Price Discrimination in Health Care

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

Identifying Price Discrimination When Product Menus Are Endogenous

A well‐known approach to identifying second‐degree price discrimination is based on examining correlations between product menus and prices. When product menus are endogenous, however, tests for price discrimination may be biased by the fact that unobservables affecting costs or demand may jointly determine product menus and prices, leading one to falsely infer price discrimination. Using observed product characteristics or fixed effects to control for these unobservables confounds inference on the nature of price discrimination by potentially “overcorrecting” the original bias. I propose a difference‐indifferences approach that is robust to this critique. An application to the pricing of different package sizes of paper towels is presented.     

The Campus Parking Game: A Demonstration of Price Discrimination and Efficiency

This article presents a classroom game that allows students to directly experience the welfare improvements that can result from price discrimination. The demonstration uses a very familiar decision-making scenario, campus parking, to introduce the concept of price discrimination as well as reinforce the concepts of opportunity cost, consumer surplus, and search costs. This game can be used in a variety of classes, including principles, intermediate theory, industrial organization, or environmental economics, and can be conducted in a 50-minute class period with follow-up discussion in the next class.     

Price Discrimination in the Subscription Market for Economics Journals

We examine what factors affect the degree of price discrimination for an academic journal by analyzing data on 190 of the 208 economics journals indexed in the 2008 edition of Journal Citation Reports. We find that (i) the library‐to‐individual price ratio of a for‐profit journal is 37% higher than that of a comparable nonprofit journal because the price premium of a for‐profit journal in the library market is disproportionately larger than that in the individual market, (ii) journals with higher citations per page or impact factor are more price discriminatory, and (iii) Elsevier and Wiley‐Blackwell practice the highest degree of price discrimination of all publishers.     

价格歧视原理在国际原油贸易中的应用

随着中国石油消费的快速增长,从中东进口的原油量逐年增加,亚洲溢价对中国经济的影响也越来越大。中东原油的亚洲溢价现象的实质是价格歧视。本文运用价格歧视理论对亚洲溢价问题进行了深入分析,发现亚洲对中东原油的需求价格弹性较小,中东国家通过目的地限制和禁止转售条款实现市场的有效分割,从而可以通过价格歧视来实现垄断利润。     

分析三级价格歧视的福利效应图解法

本文运用图解分析法来考察三级价格歧视对福利的影响，包括对Varian（1985）研究结论的检验。本文给出了实施价格歧视引起福利提高的充分必要条件，对这方面的管理和经济学文献具有教学法方面的价值。     

Cartel Organization,Price Discrimination,and Selection of Transatlantic Migrants: 1899–1911

We study the effects of trans‐Atlantic passenger shipping cartels on tourist/business and migrant traffic. Collusion had a smaller effect on first and second class service relative to third class service. Its effects were proportionately stronger eastbound, but less important in absolute numbers given smaller eastbound traffic. Collusion‐driven consumer substitution across classes was small but non‐negligible. Thus, collusion affected migrant traffic far more than tourist/business traffic. We also confirm that collusion led to higher fares across all cabin classes, especially for steerage. We construct and calibrate an analytical model and show that the pattern of observed prices and volumes are consistent with a profit‐maximizing cartel, thus buttressing the hypothesis that the collusion effects were causal. Finally, we document that collusion led to positive selection of migrants, as measured by literacy rates and financial resources.     

高校教材价格折扣的属性分析

随着我国市场经济的建立和教育教学改革的不断发展,高校教材的商品属性也日益体现,教材折扣作为商业折扣的一种,其存在的意义和作用受到整个社会的关注。通过对高校教材折扣的理论与实践分析,认清教材折扣的性质及归属,有利于调动买卖双方的积极性。     

全国部分省市再生资源公司废旧物资行情价格表

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全国部分省市再生资源公司废旧物资行情价格表

北京上海天津重庆沈阳石家庄山东昆明西安收购价供应价收购价供应价收购价供应价收购价供应价收购价供应价收购价供应价收购价供应价收购价供应价收购价供应价紫杂铜１２０００１３０００１２５００１３２００１２０００１３０００１３５００１４５００１２５００１３５００１２０００１３０００１３５００１４５００１３０００１３５００１１５００１２５００黄杂铜１１０００１２０００９６００１０３００８０００９０００１０５００１１５００１００００１１５００１００００１１０００１００００１１０００８８００９２００９５００１０…     

全国部分省市再生资源公司废旧物资行情价格表

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全国部分省市再生资源公司废旧物资行情价格表

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