This Article critique the role that the partial equilibrium trade-off paradigm plays in the debate over the definition of “consumer welfare” that courts should employ when developing and applying antitrust doctrine. The paper contends that common reliance on the paradigm distorts the debate...

This paper studies monopolistic third-degree price discrimination incorporating consumers' fairness concerns: Discriminatory pricing antagonizes consumers and may reduce their demand. In contrast to previous studies, we show that consumers' concerns about price inequity may deter discriminatory...

We consider a profit-maximizing monopolist that faces N2 different markets while the number k of discriminatory prices is chosen by the regulator. Unlike the classical approach in which only the polar cases are considered, we explicitly analyze the case in which k is an integer between 1 and N....

In an environment that features second-degree price discrimination, this paper fully characterizes the set of surplus divisions that can arise from all possible information consumers have about their valuation. By extending the techniques developed in a companion paper (Yang, 2019a), I show that...

This paper studies consumers' incentives to hide their purchase histories when the seller's prices depend on previous behavior. Through distinct channels, hiding both hinders and facilitates trade. Indeed, the social optimum involves hiding to some extent, yet not fully. Two opposing effects...

We compare second-degree price discrimination with uniform pricing using two linear demands. Our comparison shows that second-degree price discrimination can result in a welfare-enhancing market foreclosure (both markets are served under uniform pricing but one of them is excluded under...

We study a two-sided market where a platform attracts firms selling differentiated products and buyers interested in those products. In the unique subgame perfect equilibrium of the game, the platform fully internalizes the network externalities present in the market and firms and consumers all...

Policies to correct market power and selection can be misguided when these forces co-exist. We build a model of symmetric imperfect competition in selection markets that parameterizes the degree of market power and selection. We use graphical price-theoretic reasoning to characterize the...

In this paper, we show that in order for third-degree price discrimination to increase total output, the demands of the strong markets should be, as conjectured by Robinson (1933), more concave than the demands of the weak markets. By making the distinction between adjusted concavity of the...

Using a game theoretic framework, we show that not only can pay-what-you-want pricing generate positive profits, but it can also be more profitable than charging a fixed price to all consumers. Further, whenever it is more profitable, it is also Pareto-improving. We derive conditions in terms of...