The Limits of Price Discrimination

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bergemann, Dirk; Brooks, Benjamin; Morris, Stephen
• 署名单位: Yale University; University of Chicago; Princeton University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20130848
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 921-957
• 关键词: Incomplete information; monopoly; welfare

摘要

We analyze the welfare consequences of a monopolist having additional information about consumers' tastes, beyond the prior distribution; the additional information can be used to charge different prices to different segments of the market, i.e., carry out third degree price discrimination. We show that the segmentation and pricing induced by the additional information can achieve every combination of consumer and producer surplus such that: (i) consumer surplus is nonnegative, (ii) producer surplus is at least as high as profits under the uniform monopoly price, and (iii) total surplus does not exceed the surplus generated by efficient trade.