We investigate how costly acquisition and exchange of customer-specific information affects industry profit and consumer welfare. Consumers differ in their preferences for competing brands and in their switching costs between brands. Brand-producing firms use their acquired knowledge of...

We introduce three types of consumer recognition: identity recognition, asymmetric preference recognition, and symmetric preference recognition. We characterize price equilibria and compare profits, consumer surplus, and total welfare. Asymmetric preference recognition enhances profits compared...

We propose a model of discrimination in the market for mortgages. The model explains accepted loan applications and determines loan sizes and interest rates simultaneously. A competitive, and a discriminating monopoly version of the model are proposed. Offered interest rates and loan sizes are a...

We empirically test the hypothesis that the discounts offered by firms to consumers who purchase tickets in advance increase with the intensity of competition. We develop a new measure of competition for which we use the proximity (in departure time) of a given flight to its competitors to infer...

A parsimonious theoretical model of second degree price discrimination suggests that the business cycle will affect the degree to which firms are able to price-discriminate between different consumer types. We analyze price dispersion in the airline industry to assess how price discrimination...

Governments often subsidize poorer groups in society to ensure their access to new drugs. We analyze here the optimal income-based price subsidies in a strategic environment. We show that asymmetric health systems can arise even though countries are ex-ante symmetric when international price...

We empirically test the hypothesis that the discounts offered by firms to consumers who purchase tickets in advance increase with the intensity of competition. We develop a new measure of competition for which we use the proximity (in departure time) of a given flight to its competitors to infer...

We consider a heretofore unexplored explanation for why platforms, such as Internet service providers, might impose download limits on content consumers: doing so increases the degree to which those consumers view content providers’ products as substitutes. This, in turn, intensifies the...

We consider the optimal pricing and referral strategy of a monopoly that uses a simple consumer communication network (a chain) to spread product information. The first-best policy with fully discriminatory position-based referral fees involves standard monopoly pricing and referral fees that...

We analyze models of product differentiation with perfect price discrimination and free entry. Although perfect price discrimination ensures efficient output decisions given product characteristics, coordination failures may prevent efficiency in the choice of product characteristics. More...