消费者寻求多样化与企业定价竞争

Consumer Variety-seeking Behavior and Corporate Pricing Competition

消费者寻求多样化的购买行为会对寡头企业之间的价格竞争和经济效率产生重要影响。文章研究发现,针对消费者寻求多样化的购买行为,企业会对忠诚的消费者给予价格优惠,而对新顾客索取高价;消费者寻求多样化购买行为弱化了企业两期价格竞争,导致"默契合谋";而以两期统一定价为基准的经济效率分析显示,歧视定价机制促进了企业间竞争,导致消费者剩余增加,企业利润减少。

Consumer variety-seeking behavior has the important effect on the price competition among oligopolistic firms and economic efficiency. This paper indicates that, by taking consumer variety-seeking behavior into account, firms give price concessions for loyal consumers and charge new consumers high prices. Consumer variety-seeking behavior weakens corporate price competition in two periods, leading to tacit collusion. The analysis of economic efficiency on the basis of uniform pricing in two periods shows that discriminatory pricing mechanism improves the competition among firms and results in the increase in consumer surplus and the reduction in corporate profits.