Price Discrimination by a Many-Product Firm

S-Tier
Journal: Review of Economic Studies
Year: 1999
Volume: 66
Issue: 1
Pages: 151-168

Score contribution per author:

8.043 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

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

Abstract

Determining the optimal selling strategy for a multiproduct firm facing consumers with unobservable tastes is a difficult task. This paper aims to show how almost optimal nonlinear tariffs can often be found when the number of products is large. Moreover, such tariffs take a simple form: (i) when taste parameters are independently distributed across products, the almost optimal tariff is a single cost-based two-part tariff which can extract virtually all consumer surplus; (ii) when tastes are correlated across products, perhaps because of income differences across consumers, the almost optimal tariff can be implemented as a menu of two-part tariffs each of which has prices proportional to marginal costs.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:restud:v:66:y:1999:i:1:p:151-168.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-24