Competition in the Presence of Individual Demand Uncertainty

This paper sheds light on an empirical controversy about the effect of competition on price discrimination. We propose a model in which consumers learn their preferences over time and show that firms offer advance purchase discounts. Consumers choose between an early (uninformed) purchase at a low price and a late (informed) purchase at a high price. Competing firms offer higher discounts to secure a large market share in advance. Competition decreases welfare and may affect consumers negatively. The empirical finding, that competition may influence price dispersion positively or negatively, can be explained by differences in the level of demand uncertainty.