Advance-purchase discounts as a price discrimination device

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nocke, Volker; Peitz, Martin; Rosar, Frank
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim; University of Bonn; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of Oxford; Leibniz Association; Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2010.07.008
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 141-162
• 关键词: Advance-purchase discount; Introductory offers; Demand uncertainty; monopoly pricing; price discrimination; Intertemporal pricing; mechanism design

摘要

In an intertemporal setting in which individual uncertainty is resolved over time, advance-purchase discounts can serve to price discriminate between consumers with different expected valuations for the product. Consumers with a high expected valuation purchase the product before learning their actual valuation at the offered advance-purchase discount; consumers with a low expected valuation will wait and purchase the good at the regular price only in the event where their realized valuation is high. We characterize the profit-maximizing pricing strategy of the monopolist. Furthermore, adopting a mechanism design perspective, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition under which advance-purchase discounts implement the monopolist's optimal mechanism. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.