Discussion paper

DP6664 Advance-Purchase Discounts as a Price Discrimination Device

In an intertemporal setting in which individual uncertainty is resolved over time, advance-purchase discounts can serve to price discriminate between consumers with different expected valuations for the same product. Consumers with a high expected valuation purchase the product before learning their actual valuation at the offered advance-purchase discount; consumers with a low expected valuation will wait and purchase the good at the regular price only in the event where their realized valuation is high. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition under which the monopolist's optimal intertemporal selling policy features such advance-purchase discounts.

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Citation

Nocke, V and M Peitz (2008), ‘DP6664 Advance-Purchase Discounts as a Price Discrimination Device‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6664. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp6664