Is price dispersion always an indication of price discrimination?

Jose Alberro () and Richard Higgins

Estudios y Perspectivas – Sede Subregional de la CEPAL en México from Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL)

Abstract: It has been established for a long time that there is significant dispersion in prices charged for seemingly homogeneous goods. This may happen in competitive markets because the world is not frictionless, and certainly in other markets where price discrimination is carried out by firms with oligopolistic power. This paper is the first survey of the economic literature on price dispersion that addresses the following three key issues: i) its characteristics as a result of optimizing search behavior; ii) its relevance as a reflection of price discrimination and its consequences for social welfare and policy intervention; and iii) the empirical evidence of price dispersion. By contributing to a better understanding of price dispersion, this survey may help in the design and implementation of competition and anti-trust policies

Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/37677

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecr:col031:37677

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Estudios y Perspectivas – Sede Subregional de la CEPAL en México from Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Biblioteca CEPAL ().