IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cla/levarc/786969000000000776.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Limits of Price Discrimination

Author

Listed:
  • Dirk Bergemann
  • Benjamin A. Brooks
  • Stephen Morris

Abstract

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 non-negative, (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.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Bergemann & Benjamin A. Brooks & Stephen Morris, 2013. "The Limits of Price Discrimination," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000776, David K. Levine.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:levarc:786969000000000776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs4786969000000000776.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergemann, Dirk & Morris, Stephen, 2016. "Bayes correlated equilibrium and the comparison of information structures in games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), May.
    2. 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.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2013. "Robust Predictions in Games With Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(4), pages 1251-1308, July.
    4. Robert J. Aumann, 1995. "Repeated Games with Incomplete Information," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011476, December.
    5. Curtis R. Taylor, 2004. "Consumer Privacy and the Market for Customer Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(4), pages 631-650, Winter.
    6. Emir Kamenica & Matthew Gentzkow, 2011. "Bayesian Persuasion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2590-2615, October.
    7. Varian, Hal R, 1985. "Price Discrimination and Social Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 870-875, September.
    8. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2013. "The Comparison of Information Structures in Games: Bayes Correlated Equilibrium and Individual Sufficiency," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000730, David K. Levine.
    9. John Riley & Richard Zeckhauser, 1983. "Optimal Selling Strategies: When to Haggle, When to Hold Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 267-289.
    10. Dirk Bergemann & Benjamin Brooks & Stephen Morris, 2013. "Extremal Information Structures in the First Price Auction," Working Papers 055-2013, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program..
    11. Eric Maskin & John Riley, 1984. "Monopoly with Incomplete Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(2), pages 171-196, Summer.
    12. Schmalensee, Richard, 1981. "Output and Welfare Implications of Monopolistic Third-Degree Price Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(1), pages 242-247, March.
    13. Simon Cowan, 2016. "Welfare-increasing third-degree price discrimination," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(2), pages 326-340, May.
    14. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680, Decembrie.
    15. Nahata, Babu & Ostaszewski, Krzysztof & Sahoo, P K, 1990. "Direction of Price Changes in Third-Degree Price Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1254-1258, December.
    16. Simon Cowan, 2012. "Third-Degree Price Discrimination and Consumer Surplus," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 333-345, June.
    17. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    18. repec:cwl:cwldpp:1821rrr is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Iñaki Aguirre & Simon Cowan & John Vickers, 2010. "Monopoly Price Discrimination and Demand Curvature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1601-1615, September.
    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. repec:cwl:cwldpp:1896rrr is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:cwl:cwldpp:1896rr is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Jong-Hee Hahn & Chan KIm, 2018. "Input price discrimination with differentiated final products," Working papers 2018rwp-118, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.
    4. Simon Cowan, 2016. "Welfare-increasing third-degree price discrimination," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(2), pages 326-340, May.
    5. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2019. "Information Design: A Unified Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(1), pages 44-95, March.
    6. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    7. Alessandro Acquisti & Hal R. Varian, 2005. "Conditioning Prices on Purchase History," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 367-381, May.
    8. Markus Dertwinkel‐Kalt & Christian Wey, 2023. "Third‐Degree Price Discrimination in Oligopoly when Markets are Covered," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 464-490, June.
    9. Tang, Yao & Chen, Rachel R. & Guan, Xu, 2021. "Daily-deal market with consumer retention: Price discrimination or quality differentiation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    10. Bergemann, Dirk & Morris, Stephen, 2016. "Bayes correlated equilibrium and the comparison of information structures in games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), May.
    11. Shota Ichihashi, 2020. "Online Privacy and Information Disclosure by Consumers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(2), pages 569-595, February.
    12. repec:ehu:ikerla:11103 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Etro, Federico, 2016. "Research in economics and industrial organization," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 511-517.
    14. Zibin Xu & Anthony Dukes, 2022. "Personalization from Customer Data Aggregation Using List Price," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 960-980, February.
    15. Yongmin Chen & Marius Schwartz, 2015. "Differential pricing when costs differ: a welfare analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 442-460, June.
    16. Zhu Wang & Julian Wright, 2018. "Should platforms be allowed to charge ad valorem fees?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 739-760, September.
    17. Iñaki Aguirre & Simon G. Cowan, 2015. "Monopoly price discrimination with constant elasticity demand," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 3(2), pages 329-340, October.
    18. Chen, Yongmin & Schwartz, Marius, 2012. "Beyond price discrimination: welfare under differential pricing when costs also differ," MPRA Paper 43393, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Garrett, Daniel F., 2020. "Payoff Implications of Incentive Contracting," TSE Working Papers 20-1140, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    20. Takanori Adachi & Noriaki Matsushima, 2014. "The Welfare Effects Of Third-Degree Price Discrimination In A Differentiated Oligopoly," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(3), pages 1231-1244, July.
    21. Carroll, Gabriel, 2016. "Informationally robust trade and limits to contagion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 334-361.
    22. Alireza Fallah & Michael I. Jordan & Ali Makhdoumi & Azarakhsh Malekian, 2024. "The Limits of Price Discrimination Under Privacy Constraints," Papers 2402.08223, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    23. Soheil Ghili & Russ Yoon, 2023. "An Empirical Analysis of Optimal Nonlinear Pricing in Business-to-Business Markets," Papers 2302.11643, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • 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

    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:cla:levarc:786969000000000776. 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: David K. Levine (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.dklevine.com/ .

    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.