Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
批发价格歧视的成本合理性
Cost Justification for Wholesale Price Discrimination
摘要
While the Robinson‐Patman Act prohibits price discrimination in wholesale markets, it allows for a cost justification. In a model where an upstream seller incurs different costs to serve downstream buyers, we show that setting differential wholesale prices consistently raises social welfare relative to uniform pricing. Even when total output decreases, efficiency gains from improved production allocation outweigh the resulting loss in consumer surplus. These findings contrast with price discrimination based on demand‐side production efficiency. In a more general setting with price differentials driven by both cost and demand factors, we identify conditions under which wholesale price discrimination improves welfare, depending on the relative magnitudes of cost and efficiency variation, their covariance, and the curvature of final demand. Our analysis underscores the importance of distinguishing the underlying sources of price differentials in antitrust enforcement under the Act.
中文摘要
尽管《罗宾逊-帕特曼法》禁止批发市场中的价格歧视，但它允许成本抗辩。在一个上游卖方为服务下游买方而承担不同成本的模型中，我们表明，相对于统一定价，设定差异化批发价格始终会提高社会福利。即使总产出下降，生产配置改善所带来的效率收益仍超过由此导致的消费者剩余损失。这些发现与基于需求侧生产效率的价格歧视形成对比。在价格差异同时由成本和需求因素驱动的更一般设定中，我们识别了批发价格歧视改善福利的条件，这些条件取决于成本与效率变异的相对幅度、二者的协方差以及最终需求的曲率。我们的分析凸显了在该法下的反垄断执法中区分价格差异潜在来源的重要性。