Monopolistic competition, price discrimination and welfare

C-Tier
Journal: Economics Letters
Year: 2019
Volume: 174
Issue: C
Pages: 114-117

Score contribution per author:

0.503 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This paper studies third degree price discrimination in a monopolistically competitive market. When the number of firms is fixed, price discrimination raises firm profit and reduces consumer welfare relative to uniform pricing. When entry is endogenized, the equilibrium product variety under price discrimination is always excessive compared with the social optimum, whereas under uniform pricing variety may be too much or too little. Except when entry is far below the welfare optimum under uniform pricing, a ban on price discrimination leads to enhanced consumer and social welfare.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:ecolet:v:174:y:2019:i:c:p:114-117
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25