2010年11月20日10:30 ~ 12:00

台大社會科學院26教室

題目

作者

文獻出處

Ching-Sheng Chen, Hong Hwang

& Cheng-Hau Peng

Working paper

黃鴻    林燕淑    王光正    蔡明芳    高國峰    陳宏易    凃光億    彭正浩    劉亮君    丁宏仁    林晏如    曹古駒    張瑞雲    莊復賢    徐靖

We analyze the price decision of an upstream monopolist who produces and sells an intermediate good to a downstream industry where a chain store competes with many local firms. The input monopolist can choose either third-degree discriminatory pricing or uniform pricing. We compare the input prices and the levels of social welfare between the two pricing schemes. In a benchmark case, where the chain store is integrated backward, we find that, if the input monopolist adopts discriminatory pricing, it may charge more efficient local firms a lower input price. Moreover, price discrimination in the input market does not change the total output of the final good and increases production costs, but it can enhance social welfare due to a higher consumption benefit. The same conclusion can also be found in the case where the chain store is not integrated and also serves as a buyer in the input market. This finding is different from the well-known conclusion that price discrimination in final good markets is welfare-improving only if it can raise total output. In addition, this is also different from the conclusion that input price discrimination is adverse to social welfare due to its lower production efficiency.