双边市场、不完全信息与基于购买行为的价格歧视

A Study on Two-sided Market, Incomplete Information and Behavior-based Price Discrimination

文章研究了双边市场平台根据用户购买行为进行价格歧视的现象,构建了包括双边市场平台、双边用户在内的一个两阶段博弈模型,在此,双边用户存在品牌偏好异质性且其跨期偏好不变,平台以用户的购买行为为信号推测其品牌偏好,并由此对双边用户进行价格歧视。文章以双边市场平台无价格歧视为基准情况,分析了平台根据用户购买行为进行价格歧视(有价格承诺、无价格承诺)对平台利润、消费者剩余、社会福利等的影响。研究表明:在双边用户跨期偏好不变的假设下,选择基于用户购买行为的价格歧视且无价格承诺是平台的严格被占优策略,双边市场平台将根据用户组间网络外部性的相对大小而选择无价格歧视或有价格歧视且有价格承诺;与无价格歧视时相比,若平台选择价格歧视且有价格承诺,将导致消费者剩余、社会福利的损失;无论其进行价格承诺与否,平台的价格歧视行为对于平台间竞争的影响都随双边用户组间网络外部性相对大小的变化而不同。

This paper analyses behavior-based price discrimination in two-sided market by constructing a two-stage game model including two oligopolistic two-sided market platforms and two groups’ consumers. In this model consumers are identified as heterogeneous in their brand preference and this preference is constant between the two stages;thus,the platforms can deduce the consumers’ brand preference based on their purchasing behavior,and then discriminate the consumers. Taking the uniform pricing as a baseline,this paper analyses the mechanism and influence of price discrimination with,and without,price commitment,separately. This study finds that price discrimination without commitment is the firms’ strictly dominated strategy and the firm will choose uniform pricing or price discrimination with commitment;comparatively,when price discrimination with commitment is chosen,the consumers’ surplus and the social welfare will be weakened;no matter whether commitment is made or not,the influence of the behavior-based price discrimination on the competition in the two stages depends on the intergroup externality between the two groups’ users.