【1119期】 3月28日微观经济学学术讲座：Multi-product Monopolist and Information Design（石凡奇, 北京大学经济学院，助理教授）

【主题】Multi-product Monopolist and Information Design

【报告人】石凡奇, 北京大学经济学院，助理教授

【时间】2023年3月28日周二14:00-15:30

【地点】经济学院大楼701会议室

【语言】英文

【摘要】We study the optimal combination of information disclosure policies and selling mechanisms for a profit-maximizing monopolist with multiple products of distinct quality. If the unit-demand buyer’s valuation is multiplicative in the product quality, then it is optimal for the seller to offer a nondiscriminatory experiment that always reveals the identity of the highest quality product and to set a nondiscriminatory posted price for each product. This result holds for both omniscient and private disclosures and is generalized to a buyer with multi-unit demand. For general valuation structures, the seller may profit from information and price discrimination. Specifically, it is optimal for the seller to offer a discriminatory experiment that reveals the identity of the highest quality product and to allocate that product to the buyer, provided the quality realization is above a type-specific threshold. The key message is that information disclosure can facilitate the seller’s surplus extraction when there are reasonable alternatives, while information discrimination (combined with price discrimination) can improve the expected profit only when the minimum type of buyer to which the seller wants to relinquish a product (i.e., threshold type) depends on the product’s quality realization.