This paper studies the welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination under oligopolistic competition with horizontal product differentiation. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for price discrimination to improve social welfare: the degree of substitution must be sufficiently...

The recent developments in information technology (IT) have enabled firms to employ personalized pricing. Should all firms employ personalized pricing even though the adaptation costs of such pricing strategies are not high? This paper theoretically demonstrates a situation in which all firms do...