IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aim/wpaimx/1713.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price Discrimination and Dispersion under Asymmetric Profiling of Consumers

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Two duopolists compete in price on the market for a homogeneous product. They can use a 'profiling technology' that allows them to identify the willingness-to-pay of their consumers with some probability. If both firms have profiling technologies of the exact same precision, or if one firm cannot use any profiling technology, then the Bertrand paradox continues to prevail. Yet, if firms have technologies of different precisions, then the price equilibrium exhibits both price discrimination and price dispersion, with positive expected profits. Increasing the precision of both firms’ technologies does not necessarily harm consumers.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Belleflamme & Wing Man Wynne Lam & Wouter Vergote, 2017. "Price Discrimination and Dispersion under Asymmetric Profiling of Consumers," AMSE Working Papers 1713, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.amse-aixmarseille.fr/sites/default/files/_dt/2012/wp_2017_-_nr_13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandro Acquisti & Curtis Taylor & Liad Wagman, 2016. "The Economics of Privacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 442-492, June.
    2. Maarten Janssen & Eric Rasmusen, 2002. "Bertrand Competition Under Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 11-21, March.
    3. Belleflamme, Paul & Vergote, Wouter, 2016. "Monopoly price discrimination and privacy: The hidden cost of hiding," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 141-144.
    4. Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Vives, Xavier, 1988. "On the Strategic Choice of Spatial Price Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 122-137, March.
    5. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-659, September.
    6. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    7. Jentzsch, Nicola & Sapi, Geza & Suleymanova, Irina, 2013. "Targeted pricing and customer data sharing among rivals," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 131-144.
    8. Benjamin Reed Shiller, 2013. "First Degree Price Discrimination Using Big Data," Working Papers 58, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School, revised Jan 2014.
    9. Nicky J. Welton & Howard H. Z. Thom, 2015. "Value of Information," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 35(5), pages 564-566, July.
    10. Rodrigo Montes & Wilfried Sand-Zantman & Tommaso Valletti, 2015. "The Value of Personal Information in Markets with Endogenous Privacy," CEIS Research Paper 352, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 05 Aug 2015.
    11. Yuxin Chen & Ganesh Iyer, 2002. "Research Note Consumer Addressability and Customized Pricing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 197-208, November.
    12. Clavorà Braulin, Francesco & Valletti, Tommaso, 2016. "Selling customer information to competing firms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 10-14.
    13. Spulber, Daniel F, 1995. "Bertrand Competition When Rivals' Costs Are Unknown," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 1-11, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Yiquan Gu & Leonardo Madio & Carlo Reggiani, 2019. "Exclusive Data, Price Manipulation and Market Leadership," CESifo Working Paper Series 7853, CESifo.
    3. David Bounie & Antoine Dubus & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2018. "Selling Strategic Information in Digital Competitive Markets," Working Papers hal-01794886, HAL.
    4. David Bounie & Antoine Dubus & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2021. "Selling strategic information in digital competitive markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(2), pages 283-313, June.
    5. Simon Anderson & Alicia Baik & Nathan Larson, 2023. "Price Discrimination in the Information Age: Prices, Poaching, and Privacy with Personalized Targeted Discounts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(5), pages 2085-2115.
    6. Riccardo Scarpa & Cristiano Franceschinis & Mara Thiene, 2021. "Logit Mixed Logit Under Asymmetry and Multimodality of WTP: A Monte Carlo Evaluation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(2), pages 643-662, March.
    7. Clavorà Braulin, Francesco, 2021. "The effects of personal information on competition: Consumer privacy and partial price discrimination," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-007, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Morlok, Tina & Matt, Christian & Hess, Thomas, 2017. "Privatheitsforschung in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften: Entwicklung, Stand und Perspektiven," Working Papers 1/2017, University of Munich, Munich School of Management, Institute for Information Systems and New Media.

    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. Paul Belleflamme & Wing Man Wynne Lam & Wouter Vergote, 2019. "Competitive Imperfect Price Discrimination and Market Power," CESifo Working Paper Series 7964, CESifo.
    2. Paul Belleflamme & Wing Man Wynne Lam, & Wouter Vergote, 2020. "Competitive Imperfect Price Discrimination and Market Power," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(5), pages 996-1015, September.
    3. Morlok, Tina & Matt, Christian & Hess, Thomas, 2017. "Privatheitsforschung in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften: Entwicklung, Stand und Perspektiven," Working Papers 1/2017, University of Munich, Munich School of Management, Institute for Information Systems and New Media.
    4. Simon Anderson & Alicia Baik & Nathan Larson, 2023. "Price Discrimination in the Information Age: Prices, Poaching, and Privacy with Personalized Targeted Discounts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(5), pages 2085-2115.
    5. Chongwoo Choe & Stephen King & Noriaki Matsushima, 2017. "Pricing with Cookies: Behavior-Based Price Discrimination and Spatial Competition," Monash Economics Working Papers 07-17, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    6. 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.
    7. Clavorà Braulin, Francesco, 2023. "The effects of personal information on competition: Consumer privacy and partial price discrimination," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    8. David Bounie & Antoine Dubus & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2021. "Selling strategic information in digital competitive markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(2), pages 283-313, June.
    9. Clavorà Braulin, Francesco, 2021. "The effects of personal information on competition: Consumer privacy and partial price discrimination," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-007, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    11. Choi, Jay Pil & Jeon, Doh-Shin & Kim, Byung-Cheol, 2019. "Privacy and personal data collection with information externalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 113-124.
    12. Anna D’Annunzio & Antonio Russo, 2020. "Ad Networks and Consumer Tracking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5040-5058, November.
    13. David Bounie & Antoine Dubus & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2018. "Selling Strategic Information in Digital Competitive Markets," Working Papers hal-01794886, HAL.
    14. Henk Kox & Bas Straathof & Gijsbert Zwart, 2017. "Targeted advertising, platform competition, and privacy," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 557-570, September.
    15. Rosa Branca Esteves, 2009. "Customer Poaching And Advertising," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 112-146, March.
    16. Dengler, Sebastian & Prüfer, Jens, 2021. "Consumers' privacy choices in the era of big data," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 499-520.
    17. Dubus, Antoine, 2024. "Behavior-based algorithmic pricing," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    18. 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.
    19. Belleflamme, Paul & Vergote, Wouter, 2016. "Monopoly price discrimination and privacy: The hidden cost of hiding," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 141-144.
    20. Chongwoo Choe & Jiajia Cong & Chengsi Wang, 2024. "Softening Competition Through Unilateral Sharing of Customer Data," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(1), pages 526-543, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    price discrimination; price dispersion; Bertrand competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D18 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Protection
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

    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:aim:wpaimx:1713. 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: Gregory Cornu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/amseafr.html .

    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.