Information provision and behaviour-based price discrimination

摘要

This article examines a model wherein firms first advertise their existence to consumers and, in the two following periods, compete with uniform pricing and then with behaviour-based price discrimination. I show that allowing firms to price discriminate can restore symmetry in equilibrium advertising decisions. I also establish that price discrimination increases (resp. decreases) profits and total welfare but hurts (resp. benefits) consumers when the advertising cost is high (resp. low).