Personalized Pricing and Consumer Welfare
利用随机控制实验数据，研究发现个性化定价使企业利润大幅提升，但总消费者剩余下降，不过超过60%的消费者受益，且在某些福利函数下消费者福利可能增加。
We study the welfare implications of personalized pricing implemented with machine learning. We use data from a randomized controlled pricing field experiment to construct personalized prices and validate these in the field. We find that unexercised market power increases profit by 55%. Personalization improves expected profits by an additional 19% and by 86% relative to the nonoptimized price. While total consumer surplus declines under personalized pricing, over 60% of consumers benefit from personalization. Under some inequity-averse welfare functions, consumer welfare may even increase. Simulations reveal a nonmonotonic relationship between the granularity of data and consumer surplus under personalization.