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Price Discrimination under Customer Recognition and Mergers

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Abstract

This paper studies the interaction between horizontal mergers and price discrimination by endogenizing the merger formation process in the context of a repeated purchase model with two periods and three firms wherein firms may engage in Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination (BBPD). From a merger policy perspective, this paper's main contribution is two-fold. First, it shows that when firms are allowed to price discriminate, the (unique) equilibrium merger gives rise to significant increases in profits for the merging firms (the ones with information to price-discriminate), but has no effect on the outsider firm's profitability, thereby eliminating the so called "free-riding problem". Second, this equilibrium merger is shown to increase industry profits at the expense of consumers' surplus, leaving total welfare unaffected and, therefore, suggesting that competition authorities should scrutinize with greater zeal mergers in industries where firms are expected to engage in BBPD.

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  • Rosa Branca Esteves & Hélder Vasconcelos, 2009. "Price Discrimination under Customer Recognition and Mergers," NIPE Working Papers 23/2009, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
  • Handle: RePEc:nip:nipewp:23/2009
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Romain de Nijs, 2015. "Behavior-based price discrimination and customer information sharing," PSE Working Papers hal-01226250, HAL.
    2. Rosa-Branca Esteves & Joana Resende, 2016. "Competitive Targeted Advertising with Price Discrimination," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 576-587, July.
    3. Esteves, Rosa-Branca & Reggiani, Carlo, 2014. "Elasticity of demand and behaviour-based price discrimination," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 46-56.
    4. Flavio Pino, 2022. "The microeconomics of data – a survey," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 49(3), pages 635-665, September.
    5. Romain de Nijs, 2015. "Behavior-based price discrimination and customer information sharing," Working Papers hal-01226250, HAL.
    6. Jin‐Hyuk Kim & Liad Wagman & Abraham L. Wickelgren, 2019. "The impact of access to consumer data on the competitive effects of horizontal mergers and exclusive dealing," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 373-391, June.
    7. Yiquan Gu & Leonardo Madio & Carlo Reggiani, 2022. "Data brokers co-opetition [The impact of big data on firm performance: an empirical investigation]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 820-839.
    8. Antoine Dubus, 2023. "Behavior-Based Algorithmic Pricing," Working Papers hal-03269586, HAL.
    9. Umezawa, Masashi, 2022. "Behavior-based price discrimination in a horizontally and vertically differentiated duopoly with switching costs," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    10. Esteves, Rosa-Branca & Cerqueira, Sofia, 2017. "Behavior-based pricing under imperfectly informed consumers," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 60-70.
    11. Rosa-Branca Esteves & Sofia Cerqueira, "undated". "Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination under Advertising and Imperfectly Informed Consumers," NIPE Working Papers 08/2014, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    12. De Nijs, Romain, 2017. "Behavior-based price discrimination and customer information sharing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 319-334.
    13. Rosa-Branca Esteves, "undated". "Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination with Retention Offers," NIPE Working Papers 09/2014, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination; Customer Poaching; Horizontal Mergers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

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