Consumer Surplus Under Demand Uncertainty
传统消费者剩余定义假设需求确定，但实际需求常随机导致缺货。本文提出随机需求下的消费者剩余定义，研究需求与供给不确定性对消费者的影响，发现不确定性通常损害消费者，并给出线性需求下消费者剩余与确定情形比值的解析界。
Consumer Surplus is traditionally defined for the case where demand is a deterministic function of the price. However, demand is usually stochastic and hence stock‐outs can occur. Policy makers who consider the impact of different regulations on Consumer Surplus often ignore the impact of demand uncertainty. We present a definition of the Consumer Surplus under stochastic demand. We then use this definition to study the impact of demand and supply uncertainty on consumers in several cases (additive and multiplicative demand noise). We show that, in many cases, demand uncertainty hurts consumers. We also derive analytical bounds on the ratio of the Consumer Surplus relative to the deterministic setting under linear demand. Our results suggest that ignoring uncertainty may severely impact the Consumer Surplus value.