Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Two-Sided Markets

Alexandre de Cornière, Andrea Mantovani and Shiva Shekhar

No 23-1464, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: We investigate the welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination by a two-sided platform that enables interaction between buyers and sellers. Sellers are heterogenous with respect to their per-interaction benefit, and, under price discrimination, the platform can condition its fee on sellers’ type. In a model with linear demand on each side, we show that price discrimination: (i) increases participation on both sides; (ii) enhances total welfare; (iii) may result in a strict Pareto improvement, with both seller types being better-off than under uniform pricing. These results, which are in stark contrast to the traditional analysis of price discrimination, are driven by the existence of cross-group network effects. By improving the firm’s ability to monetize seller participation, price discrimination induces the platform to attract more buyers, which then increases seller participation. The Pareto improvement result means that even those sellers who pay a higher price under discrimination can be better-off, due to the increased buyer participation.

JEL-codes: D42 D62 L11 L12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-cta, nep-des, nep-gth, nep-ind, nep-mic, nep-pay and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/docu ... 2023/wp_tse_1464.pdf Full Text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Two-sided Markets (2025)
Working Paper: Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Two-Sided Markets (2024)
Working Paper: Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Two-Sided Markets (2023)
Working Paper: Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Two-Sided Markets (2023)
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:tse:wpaper:128428

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().