Monopoly Price Discrimination and Demand Curvature

Published as an article in: American Economic Review, 2010, vol. 100, issue 4, pages 1601-15.

Monopoly price discrimination with constant elasticity demand

This paper presents new results on the welfare e¤ects of third-degree price discrimination under constant elasticity demand. We show that when both the share of the strong market under uniform pricing and the elasticity di¤erence between markets are high enough,then price discrimination not only can increase social welfare but also consumer surplus.

Price Premium for High-Efficiency Refrigerators and Calculation of Price-Elasticities for Close-Substitutes: Combining Hedonic Pricing and Demand Systems

21 p.

Trends in Income and Price Elasticities of Transport Demand (1850-2010)

40 p.

Joan Robinson Was Almost Right: Output under Third-Degree Price Discrimination

In this paper, we show that in order for third-degree price discrimination to increase total output, the demands of the strong markets should be, as conjectured by Robinson (1933), more concave than the demands of the weak markets. By making the distinction between adjusted concavity of the inverse demand and adjusted concavity of the direct demand, we are able to state necessary conditions and sufficient conditions for third-degree price discrimination to increase total output.

Non-Stationary Demand in a Durable Goods Monopoly

In a context where demand for the services of a durable good changes over time, and this change may be uncertain, the paper shows that social welfare may be higher when the monopolist seller can commit to any future price level she wishes than when she cannot. Moreover, the equilibrium under a monopolist with commitment power may Pareto-dominate the equilibrium under a monopolist without commitment ability. These results affect the desired regulation of a durable goods monopolist in this context.

Emergent synchronisation properties of a refrigerator demand side management system

In order to analyse the possibilities of improving grid stability on island systems by local demand response mechanisms,a multi-agent simulation model is presented. To support the primary reserve, an under-frequency load shedding (UFLS)using refrigerator loads is modelled. The model represents the system at multiple scales, by recreating each refrigerator individually, and coupling the whole population of refrigerators to a model which simulates the frequency response of the energy system, allowing for cross-scale interactions. Using a simple UFLS strategy, emergent phenomena appear in the simulation. Synchronisation e ects among the individual loads were discovered, which can have strong, undesirable impacts on the system such as oscillations of loads and frequency. The phase transition from a stable to an oscillating system is discussed.

Divergences in the Long Run Trends in the Price of Energy and of Energy Services

32 p.

The Long Run Demand for Lighting: Elasticities and Rebound Effects in Different Phases of Economic Development

25 p.

Long Run Demand for Energy Services: the Role of Economic and Technological Development

36 p.