Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/129526 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper Series No. 12-7
Publisher: 
University of Mannheim, Department of Economics, Mannheim
Abstract: 
We analyze a model of monopolistic price discrimination where only some consumers are originally sufficiently informed about their preferences, e.g., about their future demand for a utility such as electricity or telecommunication. When more consumers become informed, we show that this benefits also those consumers who remain uninformed, as it reduces the firm's incentives to extract information rent. By reducing the costs of information acquisition or forcing firms to supply consumers with the respective information about past usage, policy can further improve welfare, as contracts become more efficient. The last observation stands in contrast to earlier findings by Crémer and Khalil (American Economic Review 1992), where all consumers are uninformed.
Subjects: 
Nonlinear pricing
price discrimination
monopolistic screening
information acquisition
JEL: 
D42
D82
L12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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