Comments on: Price Discrimination 101

By: Cassy Chang

Cassy Chang — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 11:56:56 +0000

Just as long as consumers don’t know they are being price discriminated, they wouldn’t complain too much. Price discrimination takes away the consumer surplus and turns it into producer profit. I think extra satisfaction should be shared equally between producers and consumers.

By: kevin ma

kevin ma — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:26:51 +0000

Consumers suffer from price discrimination. They suffer from price discrimination because they do not get their consumer surplus, they pay exactly how much they’re willing to pay for whatever they’re getting.

The suppliers benefit from price discrimination because they are charging as much as they can for each consumer.

Society is better off with price discrimination. This way the suppliers are making more money and they can do new things with that money. Or when the shareholders see that they’re making a lot of money, they would want more of the same projects, giving society more of the product.

By: kevinhuang

kevinhuang — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:10:54 +0000

Price discrimination is a very ingeneous idea. It allows companies that otherwise could not make much economic, the ability to make economic profits. It also eliminates deadweight loss which is better for the society.

By: timothysun

timothysun — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:32:12 +0000

For some reason, I always seem to support producer surplus over consumer surplus. That’s probably because I think of myself more as a firm than a household. Weird.

Anyways, I find price discrimination to be a clever idea, because this is still not really into the long run. In the long run, demand more easily changes. In the short run, demand is pretty fixed. This allows companies like Apple to engage in price discrimination.

By: Claire Moon

Claire Moon — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:11:45 +0000

The firms are the ones who are supposed to get benefits from the price discriminations, while the consumers sufferes from the price discriminations since they lose the consumer surplus because they get to pay the highest payments they are willing to pay. This is better for society because now MR=D=AR=P and that means there is no deadweight loss, and instead there is allocative efficiency.

By: judychen

judychen — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:25:58 +0000

Consumers suffer as a result of price discrimination because it turns out that they don’t have any consumer surplus anymore. Producers benefits form price discrimination because now they have more total profits sacrifice consumer surplus. The society is better of when a monopolist is able to price discriminate because now MR=D=AR=P, therefore, there’s no deadweight loss, and achieve allocative efficiency where P= MC

By: James Tsao

James Tsao — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:23:32 +0000

Charging the price on each consumer’s maximum willingness to pay price, consumers suffer a lost because they no longer can obtain consumer surplus. In other words, the consumer surplus of every consumer is lowered to 0. Consumers who originally can not afford the product however benefits because they can now purchase the product.
Society also benefit from price discrimination because the deadweight lost is eliminated when D=P=MR=AR.
Producers benefit because they are charging digging into consumer surplus for additional economic profit

By: Jeewon Oh

Jeewon Oh — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:46:21 +0000

Cosumers suffer from price discrimination, because what they pay becomes producer surplus. The firms benefit from it though, as they are able to charge different prices for different consumers according to how much each are willing to pay, eventually yielding greater economic profits and producer surplus. I think price discrimination is good for the society, because it takes people with less income into consideration. Everyone is being charged the right price that suits their ability, and this also maximizes the producer surplus.

By: calvinlu

calvinlu — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:07:31 +0000

No doubt the consumer suffers from price discrimination, or at least relatively, especially those who is willing to pay higher than the list price in a single price economy, now they have to pay more than those who isn’t willing to pay as much for the same product, and of course those who tries to cheat will be shock and may paralyze under the rule Welker the evil monopolist. The monopolist benefits from price discrimination as turn consumer surplus into economic profit, thus the monopolist end up earning more money. But the society as a whole benefits from price discrimination as all resource are efficiently allocated, eliminating dead weight lost in a single priced monopoly.

By: serenatu

serenatu — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:03:49 +0000

1. It’s clear that the consumers suffer from the price discrimination, because now that all the original consumer surplus are all gone.
2. The monopoly firm benefits from the price discrimination, now that they are able to sell the products at different prices so it converts all the consumer surplus to producer surplus. 3. I think it’s better to the society as a whole even when the consumer surplus are being taken away, because now that the lower income families will be able to get the things they need at the price they are able to offer, and as for the richer ones, it doesn’t really matter to them, because they have the ability to pay at a higher prices than others.

By: Margaret Liu

Margaret Liu — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:50:09 +0000

In my opinion, the consumers who cannot afford the product or service benefit as well as the firm, however, those at the top of the income charts suffer since consumer surplus is turned into firm profits.

Society is both worse and better off. Better because now more people can afford the prices and while it is the people who are willing to pay more who suffer the most (no consumer surplus), they are also the wealthier and therefore probably have shares in the company. If not, then they’re already rich anyway. Society is worse off because now more people can consume the good and more consumption, most times UNNECESSARY consumption, will lead to more waste and speed the apocalypse of our existence.

By: mina.song

mina.song — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:12:16 +0000

I think although consumers suffers, i don’t think they really suffer because at any kinds of way, themselves will discriminate their prduct or any sort of things to sell to others. Therefore, although in one specific market where they are consumers, they will lost the consumer surplus, but in combination of markets where they are consumer and producer, I think they will gain producer surplus as much as they lost as consumer surplus.

By: Rebecca Sung

Rebecca Sung — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:32:12 +0000

Price discrimination causes the consumer to suffer because their consumer surplus is eliminated. Those who benefit are the companies who price discriminate because they gain the amount that should have been consumer surplus when there was no price discrimination. This benefits society because dead weight loss is eliminated. I agree with Jeff that for a student, I don’t mind having the benefit of paying less than a full price adult for a movie ticket.

By: Jeff Ye

Jeff Ye — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:58:01 +0000

With price discrimination, the consumer suffers because they have to pay more than others for the same product. Companies who price discriminate benefit from it because they are able to make consumers pay the amount that they’re WILLING to pay, or at least close to it, using different strategies as explained in the article. Price discrimination benefits society because now, dead weight loss is eliminated. Also, as a student, i certainly can’t complain about paying less than the average working adult.

By: Sunny Kim

Sunny Kim — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:39:33 +0000

As other people have already mentioned, consumers suffer from price discrimination because they lose their consumer surplus. Since consumers are paying the maximum amount they are willing to pay, there is no consumer surplus. Moreover, the suppliers are acheving benefit because they are receiving the maximum revenue. The producer surplus gets larger while the consumer surplus gets elliminated. However, in overall, the society benefits from price discrimination. This is because deadweight loss is converted to producer surplus.