为什么市场价格是离散的?——基于消费者搜寻理论的综述

Why Is The Market Price Dispersion?——Review on Consumer Search Theory

微观经济理论认为,成本相同的厂商生产同质产品,应采用相同价格(One-price law)。只有异质产品,才有可能出现价格差异化。但现实情况是,厂商生产同质产品时,也会出现价格离散现象。为什么市场价格是离散的?消费者搜寻理论认为,由于消费者对于价格拥有不完全信息,消费者的搜寻行为会导致厂商的均衡价格服从某一分布,从而价格是离散的。本文系统地总结了自斯蒂格勒(Stigler,1961)以来,消费者搜寻模型的理论研究和经验研究,对不同模型假设下消费者搜寻行为如何影响厂商价格策略进行了总结和综述。

Basing on classic microeconomic theory,there should be one market price for a homogeneous good,even though in incomplete competitive market. Only for a heterogeneous good,there maybe price dispersion.But in real world,price disperses in the homogeneous good market.Why is the market price dispersion? Consumer search theory can explain this phenomenon.Because some consumers have imperfect information about price,their search behaviors with positive search cost make the equilibrium be a mixed strategy.So the price is dispersion. We review the theoretical and empirical study on consumer search from Stigler (1961) in this paper,and compare the market equilibrium and result of comparative static's analysis in these literatures.