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The Informational Benefit of Price Discrimination

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Abstract

We consider a monopoly supplying a homogeneous good to two separate markets with different demands. In one of the markets, some buyers do not know the quality of the good, but learn about it from observing prices. Under noisy demand, third-degree price discrimination is shown to alter the informational content of the price-signals received by the uninformed buyers. Specifically, discriminatory pricing have informational benefits over uniform pricing, i.e., the posterior beliefs of the uninformed buyers have a smaller bias and a lower variance.

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  • Catherine Gendron-Saulnier & Marc Santugini, 2013. "The Informational Benefit of Price Discrimination," Cahiers de recherche 13-02, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée.
    • Handle: RePEc:iea:carech:1302
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    File URL: http://www.hec.ca/iea/cahiers/2013/iea1302_santuginim_v2.pdf
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    6. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2008. "Imperfect competition and quality signalling," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(1), pages 163-183, March.
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    8. Daughety, Andrew F. & Reinganum, Jennifer F., 2007. "Competition and confidentiality: Signaling quality in a duopoly when there is universal private information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 94-120, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Catherine Gendron-Saulnier & Marc Santugini, 2013. "Noisy Learning and Price Discrimination: Implications for Information Dissemination and Profits," Cahiers de recherche 1335, CIRPEE.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Market segmentation; Monopoly; Quality of information; Signaling; Third-degree price discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

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