Price Discrimination with Fairness Constraints
Price Discrimination with Fairness Constraints
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DOI：
10.1287/mnsc.2022.4317
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发表时间：
2022-03-18
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Lei, Xiao
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cohen, Maxime C.;Elmachtoub, Adam N.;Lei, Xiao
价格歧视策略，即根据客户估值的不同向客户提供不同的价格，已成为常见的做法。虽然它允许卖家增加他们的利润，但它也在公平方面引起了几个问题(例如，如果受保护的少数群体的估值高于(或低于)一般人的估值，则向他们收取更高的价格(或拒绝进入)。这一话题受到了媒体、行业和监管机构的广泛关注。在本文中，我们考虑了在公平约束下不同群体的定价问题。我们首先提出了四个定义：价格公平、需求公平、消费者剩余和无购买价值。我们证明了即使在简单的设置下，满足多个公平约束也是不可能的。然后，我们分析了利润最大化卖家的定价策略以及公平对卖家利润、消费者剩余和社会福利的影响。在线性需求模型下，我们发现，实行少量的价格公平会增加社会福利，而实行太多的价格公平可能会导致相对于不实施公平的福利更低。另一方面，在需求或消费者剩余方面强加公平总是会减少社会福利。最后，无购房估价的公平性总是增加社会福利。我们在几个扩展和其他常见需求模型的数值上观察到了类似的模式。我们的结果和见解为理解在歧视性定价背景下强加公平的影响提供了第一步。
Price discrimination strategies, which offer different prices to customers based on differences in their valuations, have become common practice. Although it allows sellers to increase their profits, it also raises several concerns in terms of fairness (e.g., by charging higher prices (or denying access) to protected minorities in case they have higher (or lower) valuations than the general population). This topic has received extensive attention from media, industry, and regulatory agencies. In this paper, we consider the problem of setting prices for different groups under fairness constraints. We first propose four definitions: fairness in price, demand, consumer surplus, and no-purchase valuation. We prove that satisfying more than one of these fairness constraints is impossible even under simple settings. We then analyze the pricing strategy of a profit-maximizing seller and the impact of imposing fairness on the seller's profit, consumer surplus, and social welfare. Under a linear demand model, we find that imposing a small amount of price fairness increaces social welfare, whereas too much price fairness may result in a lower welfare relative to imposing no fairness. On the other hand, imposing fairness in demand or consumer surplus always decreases social welfare. Finally, no-purchase valuation fairness always increases social welfare. We observe similar patterns under several extensions and for other common demand models numerically. Our results and insights provide a first step in understanding the impact of imposing fairness in the context of discriminatory pricing.