This paper examines whether a casino tax is good for local welfare in a tourism economy. We find that what is important for efficiency is not the tax rate itself but the tax incidence on tourists. Casino tourism in Macao engages in price discrimination via market segmentation. We prove that,...

We investigate how firms' incentives to acquire customer data for targeted offers depend on its quality. A two-dimensional Hotelling model is proposed where consumers are heterogeneous both with respect to their locations and transportation cost parameters (flexibility). Firms have perfect data...

The European car market is segmented by regulatory measures that support price discrimination by manufacturers and make consumer arbitrage difficult and costly. In a sample covering 43 models making up 80% of car sales in 11 countries in 1989-92, we find that the average standard deviation of...

This paper investigates the role of discount travel agencies such as Priceline and Hotwire in the market segmentation of the hotel and airline industries. These agencies conceal important characteristics of the offered services, such as hotel locations or flight schedules. We explicitly model...

We examine the profitability and the welfare implications of price discrimination in two-sided markets. Platforms have information about the preferences of the agents that allows them to price discriminate within each group. The conventional wisdom from one-sided horizontally differentiated...

Based on a version of the IMF’s new Global Economic Model (GEM), calibrated to analyze macroeconomic interdependence between the United States and the rest of the world, this paper asks to what extent an asymmetric productivity shock in the tradable sector of the economy may account for real...

We analyze the monopolist’s decision about how to design different versions of a good, i.e. whether to make them substitutes or complements, when consumers can buy them simultaneously. In this context, we find that versioning goods as substitutes or complements may be optimal for the...

We examine deviations from the law of one price (LOP) with price data from duty-free outlets where each product, at a given location, has its price quoted in (at least) two currencies. Reluctance to adjust relative prices for "small" deviations from LOP allows prices to differ by up to 7-10...

The practice of dynamic pricing, so typical of low cost carriers, is generally regarded as a form of price discrimination between "leisure" and "business" travellers on the single flight or on the single route. Across different routes, however, things may go differently. If price increases in...

In this paper, we analyze profitable pricing strategies when market segments overlap. Overlapping markets are segments that are not perfectly sealed, and leakage between them can occur. Different consumers are assumed to incur possibly different transaction costs if they choose to purchase in...