Jidong Zhou Publications

We study personalized pricing in a general oligopoly model. The impact of personalized pricing relative to uniform pricing hinges on the degree of market coverage. If market conditions are such that coverage is high (e.g., the production cost is low or the number of firms is high), personalized pricing harms firms and benefits consumers, whereas the opposite is true if coverage is low. When only some firms have data to personalize prices, consumers can be worse off compared to when either all or no firms personalize prices.

This paper identifies a set of possible regulations that could be used both to make the search market more competitive and simultaneously ameliorate the harms flowing from Google’s current monopoly position. The purpose of this paper is to identify conceptual problems and solutions based on sound economic principles and to begin a discussion from which robust and specific policy recommendations can be drafted.

This paper studies competition between firms when consumers observe a private signal of their preferences over products. Within the class of signal structures that induce pure-strategy pricing equilibria, we derive signal structures that are optimal for firms and those that are optimal for consumers. The firm-optimal policy amplifies underlying product differentiation, thereby relaxing competition, while ensuring consumers purchase their preferred product, thereby maximizing total welfare. The consumer-optimal policy dampens differentiation, which intensifies competition, but induces some consumers to buy their less preferred product. Our analysis sheds light on the limits to competition when the information possessed by consumers can be designed flexibly.