Price Discrimination in Broadway Theater
利用百老汇戏剧数据，量化了差别定价对企业利润和消费者福利的影响，发现相对于统一定价，差别定价使利润提升约5%，但对消费者总福利影响甚微。
A common thread in the theory literature on price discrimination has been the ambiguous welfare effects for consumers and the rise in profit for firms, relative to uniform pricing. In this study I resolve the ambiguity for consumers and quantify the benefit for a firm. I describe a model of price discrimination that includes both second-degree and third-degree price discrimination. Using data from a Broadway play, I estimate the structural model and conduct various experiments to investigate the implications of alternative pricing policies. The observed price discrimination may improve the firm's profit by approximately 5%, relative to uniform pricing, while the difference for aggregate consumer welfare is negligible. Also, I show that the gain from changing prices in the face of fluctuating demand is small under the observed price discrimination.