Oligopoly price discrimination in the retail market prevents a manufacturer from inducing optimal retail margins through any wholesale price. This motivates the manufacturer to impose resale price maintenance. In a model of third-degree price discrimination by rival retailers, a retail price ceiling (or floor) enables the manufacturer to restore the first best. Imposing a fixed retail price is ...

Concert tickets can be sold at the same price or at different prices that reflect different seating categories. Price discrimination generates about 5% greater revenues than single-price ticketing. The return to price discrimination is higher in markets with greater demand heterogeneity, as predicted by price discrimination theory. The return to an increase from three to four concert seat categ...

We study a seller’s optimal mechanism for maximizing revenue when a buyer may present evidence relevant to her value. We show that a condition very close to transparency of buyer segments is necessary and sufficient for the optimal mechanism to be deterministic–hence akin to classic third degree price discrimination–independently of non-evidence characteristics. We also find another sufficient ...

The marketing, economics, and operations management literatures have recognized many ways in which a firm can price discriminate. The question of how to price discriminate (e.g. how to price a product line) has received considerable attention but most of this work has assumed that price discrimination is optimal. However, the question of whether to price discriminate is also important as firms ...