Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium with Unobserved Price Discrimination

S-Tier
Journal: Review of Economic Studies
Year: 2019
Volume: 86
Issue: 5
Pages: 1973-1998

Authors (3)

Xavier D’Haultfœuille (not in RePEc) Isis Durrmeyer (Toulouse School of Economics (...) Philippe Février (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

2.691 = (α=2.02 / 3 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

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

Abstract

In markets where sellers are able to price discriminate, individuals pay different prices that may be unobserved by the econometrician. This article considers the structural estimation of a demand and supply model of differentiated products with such price discrimination and limited information on prices taking the form of, e.g., observing list prices from catalogues or average prices. Within this framework, identification is achieved not only with usual moment conditions on the demand side, but also through supply-side restrictions. The model can be estimated by GMM using a nested fixed point algorithm that extends the usual contraction mapping algorithm to our setting. We apply our methodology to estimate the demand and supply in the French new automobile market. Our results suggest that discounting arising from price discrimination is important. The average discount is estimated to be 9.6%, with large variation depending on buyers’ characteristics and cars’ specifications. Our results are consistent with other evidence on transaction prices in France.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:restud:v:86:y:2019:i:5:p:1973-1998
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25