Selling to Consumers with Endogenous Types

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Selling to Consumers with Endogenous Types

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Jan Boone
Joel Shapiro ()

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Abstract

For many goods (such as experience goods or addictive goods), consumers’ preferences may change over time. In this paper, we examine a monopolist’s optimal pricing schedule when current consumption can affect a consumer’s valuation in the future and valuations are unobservable. We assume that consumers are anonymous, i.e. the monopolist can’t observe a consumer’s past consumption history. For myopic consumers, the optimal consumption schedule is distorted upwards, involving substantial discounts for low valuation types. This pushes low types into higher valuations, from which rents can be extracted. For forward looking consumers, there may be a further upward distortion of consumption due to a reversal of the adverse selection effect; low valuation consumers now have a strong interest in consumption in order to increase their valuations. Firms will find it profitable to educate consumers and encourage forward looking behavior.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in its series Economics Working Papers with number 992.

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Date of creation: Aug 2006
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Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:992

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Paper
- Boone, Jan & Shapiro, Joel, 2006. "Selling to Consumers with Endogenous Types," CEPR Discussion Papers 5862, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
- Boone, J. & Shapiro, Joel, 2006. "Selling to consumers with endogenous types," Discussion Paper 74, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
- Boone, J. & Shapiro, J., 2006. "Selling to Consumers with Endogenous Types," Discussion Paper 2006-021, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Monopoly
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2007-03-10 (All new papers)
NEP-MIC-2007-03-10 (Microeconomics)
NEP-MKT-2007-03-10 (Marketing)

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Other versions:
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