Personalized Pricing, Competition and Welfare

Harold Houba, Evgenia Motchenkova and Hui Wang
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Hui Wang: Beijing Zhengjiang Science and Technology Co.

No 22-020/VII, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: Data-driven AI pricing algorithms in on-line markets collect consumer information and use it in their pricing technologies. In the simplest symmetric Hotelling's model such technologies reduce prices and profits. We extend Hotelling's model with vertically differentiated products, cost asymmetries and arbitrary adjustment costs. We provide a characterization of competition in personalized pricing: Sellers compete in offering consumer surplus, personalized prices are constrained monopoly prices and social welfare is maximal. For linear adjustment costs, adopting personalized pricing technology is a dominant strategy for both sellers. We derive conditions under which the most efficient seller increases her profit through personalized pricing. While aggregate consumer surplus increases, consumers with high switching costs may be hurt. Finally, we discuss several extensions of our approach such as oligopoly.

JEL-codes: D43 L1 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-02-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-com, nep-ind, nep-mic and nep-reg
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20220020

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