IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2608.07918.html

A Note on Market Segmentation and Bertrand Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang Xu
  • Mingsheng Zhang
  • Wei Zhao

Abstract

In this note, we show that equilibrium profit is zero in Bertrand competition with a finite number of firms and consumers whose willingness to pay are bounded, under any market segmentation profile.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang Xu & Mingsheng Zhang & Wei Zhao, 2026. "A Note on Market Segmentation and Bertrand Competition," Papers 2608.07918, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2608.07918
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.07918
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Rhodes & Jidong Zhou, 2024. "Personalized Pricing and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(7), pages 2141-2170, July.
    2. Baye, Michael R. & Morgan, John, 1999. "A folk theorem for one-shot Bertrand games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 59-65, October.
    3. Bergemann, Dirk & Morris, Stephen, 2016. "Bayes correlated equilibrium and the comparison of information structures in games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), May.
    4. Dirk Bergemann & Benjamin Brooks & Stephen Morris, 2015. "The Limits of Price Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 921-957, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Garrett, Daniel F., 2021. "Payoff implications of incentive contracting," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(4), November.
    2. Tommaso Denti & Doron Ravid, 2023. "Robust Predictions in Games with Rational Inattention," Papers 2306.09964, arXiv.org.
    3. Carroll, Gabriel, 2016. "Informationally robust trade and limits to contagion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 334-361.
    4. Makris, Miltiadis & Renou, Ludovic, 2023. "Information design in multi-stage games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(4), November.
    5. Dirk Bergemann & Benjamin Brooks & Stephen Morris, 2015. "The Limits of Price Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 921-957, March.
    6. Carmona, Guilherme & Laohakunakorn, Krittanai, 2025. "Monopoly pricing with optimal information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    7. Laurenz Marstaller, 2026. "Privacy in Search Markets," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 387, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    8. Asseyer, Andreas, 2025. "Information orders in screening problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    9. Dughmi, Shaddin, 2019. "On the hardness of designing public signals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 609-625.
    10. Heski Bar-Isaac & Ian Jewitt & Clare Leaver, 2021. "Adverse selection, efficiency and the structure of information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(2), pages 579-614, September.
    11. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2016. "Information Design, Bayesian Persuasion, and Bayes Correlated Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 586-591, May.
    12. Qiuyu Lu & Noriaki Matsushima, 2024. "Personalized Pricing When Consumers Can Purchase Multiple Items," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 1507-1524, December.
    13. Alessandro Bonatti & Yunhao Huang & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2026. "A Theory of the Effects of Privacy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 72(5), pages 3925-3947, May.
    14. Ichihashi, Shota & Smolin, Alex, 2025. "Data provision to an informed seller," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 131-144.
    15. Farzaneh Farhadi & Demosthenis Teneketzis, 2022. "Dynamic Information Design: A Simple Problem on Optimal Sequential Information Disclosure," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 443-484, June.
    16. Jacopo Bizzotto & Toomas Hinnosaar & Adrien Vigier, 2026. "The Limits of Limited Commitment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 254-280, February.
    17. Li, Fei & Song, Yangbo & Zhao, Mofei, 2023. "Global manipulation by local obfuscation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    18. Dirk Bergemann & Alessandro Bonatti, 2024. "Data, Competition, and Digital Platforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(8), pages 2553-2595, August.
    19. Rahul Deb & Anne-Katrin Roesler, 2024. "Multi-Dimensional Screening: Buyer-Optimal Learning and Informational Robustness," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(5), pages 2744-2770.
    20. Ming Chen & Sareh Nabi & Marciano Siniscalchi, 2023. "Advancing Ad Auction Realism: Practical Insights & Modeling Implications," Papers 2307.11732, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2608.07918. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.