Market Segmentation and Product Steering

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Terstiege, Stefan; Vigier, Adrien
• 署名单位: Maastricht University; University of Nottingham
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20240078
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: online; privacy; variety; prices

摘要

A monopolistic seller possesses an inventory containing distinct products, each consumer wishes to buy a single product, and the seller can steer consumers' choices. We fully characterize the producer-consumer surplus pairs induced by market segmentation when the number of products is large. The same characterization holds if the seller cannot price discriminate. We also investigate the relationship between consumer surplus, social welfare, and consumer privacy. Along the Pareto frontier, points with greater consumer surplus can be reached by market segmentations that afford more privacy. ( (JEL D42, D83, L81)