Competition and Price Discrimination: Evidence from the Parking Garage Industry
通过分析停车库行业的小时定价表，发现竞争加剧时低价端价格降幅大于高价端，表明竞争限制了企业实施价格歧视的能力，验证了经典理论。
We study the relationship between competition and price discrimination through an empirical examination of hourly price schedules in the parking garage industry. We find that the degree of price schedule curvature decreases with competition, implying a greater proportionate drop in low‐end prices than in high‐end prices when competition intensifies. Our findings suggest that competition constrains a firm's capacity to exercise price discrimination, confirming the classic textbook theory. We also offer possible explanations for our findings, including a search cost explanation, for which we find some support in the data.