Price Discrimination and the Cruise Line Industry: Implications for Market Definition, Competition, and Consumer Welfare

This article extends the price discrimination literature and applies it to market definition and competitive effects analysis in recent mergers in the cruise line industry. In that industry, short run output is fixed. If firms want to increase price and restrict output to price-insensitive customers, they have to increase the output and lower price to the price-sensitive customers. We show that with fixed output (1) it is in firms' interest to engage in price discrimination, (2) firms have increased ability to engage profitably in price discrimination as the intensity of competition decreases, and (3) the average price of price-sensitive and -insensitive consumers increase with reduced competition. Unlike the economists at the Federal Trade Commission, our analysis suggests that cruise lines engage in third-degree price discrimination. Moreover, the cruise industry could be a separate market and a reduction in the number of competitors might raise average prices.