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α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Consumers’ willingness to pay for an identical product, e.g. as caused by differences in local income or tastes, may differ greatly across locations. Yet, while a large literature examines consumers’ optimal price and product-search behavior under various market configurations, the equilibrium effects of such consumer segregation remain unexplored. To this end, I study a stylized model in which two local monopolistic markets differ in size and their consumers’ willingness to pay. After observing their native market’s price, a subset of flexible consumers may travel to the other market at positive cost, hoping for a bargain. I show that as long as the proportion of flexible high-valuation consumers is not too large, active and directed search to the lower-valuation market will occur in equilibrium. If the higher-valuation market is relatively large in size, complex mixed-strategy pricing emerges in equilibrium. For regulators, increasing the fraction of flexible consumers tends to be more effective than manipulating search costs.