Price Discrimination in the Information Age: Prices, Poaching, and Privacy with Personalized Targeted Discounts
中文摘要
本文研究企业在事后可以（付费）针对个体消费者提供定向折扣时的标价竞争，并探讨近期允许消费者自行选择是否加入定向营销的隐私法规（如《通用数据保护条例》GDPR）。被定向的消费者会收到客户争夺折扣和客户维系折扣。均衡折扣报价采取混合策略，但每个被争夺的消费者仅由两家企业竞争，企业从这些消费者身上获得的最终利润呈现出类似伯特兰竞争的特征。当定向营销不受限制时，企业的标价行为类似于垄断定价。在合理的需求条件下，且当定向营销成本并非过低时，与禁止定向营销相比，不受限制的定向营销会使企业和消费者的境况都变差。然而，若需求为凸（凹）函数，定向营销会导致标价上升（下降）；只要标价的变动幅度足够大并有利于市场某一方，该方（企业或消费者）便可能从中受益。在拥有选择权的情况下，消费者仅当预期折扣超过隐私成本时才会选择加入。在经验上合理的条件下，选择加入机制会使所有消费者的境况都得到改善。
Abstract
Abstract We study list price competition when firms can individually target consumer discounts (at a cost) afterwards, and we address recent privacy regulation (like the GDPR) allowing consumers to choose whether to opt-in to targeting. Targeted consumers receive poaching and retention discount offers. Equilibrium discount offers are in mixed strategies, but only two firms vie for each contested consumer and final profits on them are Bertrand-like. When targeting is unrestricted, firm list pricing resembles monopoly. For plausible demand conditions and if targeting costs are not too low, firms and consumers are worse off with unrestricted targeting than banning it. However, targeting induces higher (lower) list prices if demand is convex (concave), and either side of the market can benefit if list prices shift enough in its favour. Given the choice, consumers opt in only when expected discounts exceed privacy costs. Under empirically plausible conditions, opt-in choice makes all consumers better off.