NAIVETE-BASED DISCRIMINATION

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Heidhues, Paul; Koszegi, Botond
• 署名单位: Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf; Central European University
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjw042
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1019-1054
• 关键词: CREDIT-CARD MARKET; price-discrimination; welfare costs; self-control; BILL-SHOCK; privacy; INFORMATION; demand; ECONOMICS; pay

摘要

We initiate the study of naivete-based discrimination, the practice of conditioning offers on external information about consumers' naivete. Knowing that a consumer is naive increases a monopolistic or competitive firm's willingness to generate inefficiency to exploit the consumer's mistakes, so naivete-based discrimination is not Pareto-improving, can be Pareto-damaging, and often lowers total welfare when classical preference-based discrimination does not. Moreover, the effect on total welfare depends on a hitherto unemphasized market feature: the extent to which the exploitation of naive consumers distorts trade with different types of consumers. If the distortion is homogeneous across naive and sophisticated consumers, then under an arguably weak and empirically testable condition, naivete-based discrimination lowers total welfare. In contrast, if the distortion arises only for trades with sophisticated consumers, then perfect naivete-based discrimination maximizes social welfare, although imperfect discrimination often lowers welfare. If the distortion arises only for trades with naive consumers, then naivete-based discrimination has no effect on welfare. We identify applications for each of these cases. In our primary example, a credit market with present-biased borrowers, firms lend more than is socially optimal to increase the amount of interest naive borrowers unexpectedly pay, creating a homogeneous distortion. The condition for naivete-based discrimination to lower welfare is then weaker than prudence.