American Economic Review · 2026 · Dirk Bergemann、Tibor Heumann、Michael C. Wang
中文摘要
我们分析了当垄断者能够跨细分市场调整价格和产品质量，同时实施二级和三级价格歧视时的消费者剩余。我们刻画了消费者最优的市场细分，并表明其具有引人注目的结构：具有相同估值的消费者在每个细分市场中获得相同的质量，尽管价格不同。在温和条件下，当且仅当需求弹性充分大于供给弹性时，任何市场细分都会损害消费者。因此，消费者潜在的收益关键取决于需求弹性和供给弹性。这些发现对有关价格歧视和市场细分的监管政策具有启示意义。(JEL D42, D83, K21, L12, L15)
Abstract
We analyze consumer surplus when a monopolist can adjust both prices and product qualities across segments, engaging in secondand third-degree price discrimination simultaneously. We characterize the consumer-optimal segmentation and show that it has a striking structure: Consumers with the same value receive the same quality in every segment, though prices differ. Under mild conditions, any segmentation harms consumers if and only if demand is sufficiently more elastic than supply. Hence, potential benefits for consumers depend critically on demand and supply elasticities. These findings have implications for regulatory policy regarding price discrimination and market segmentation. (JEL D42, D83, K21, L12, L15)