Spatial Price Policies Reconsidered

The authors provide a comparison of three spatial price policies: uniform pricing, mill pricing, and spatial price discrimination. Profits, consumer surplus, and social surplus are compared in a duopoly model. Until recently, oligopoly analysis has been stalled because of nonexistence of equilibrium. Through the addition of product heterogeneity (using a logit specification), existence can be restored and price policies compared. In contrast to monopoly analysis, consumer surplus is highest under uniform pricing and lowest under mill pricing. Profit and social surplus follow the opposite ranking. Government regulation to encourage mill pricing may therefore benefit firms to the detriment of consumers. Copyright 1989 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.