Stockpiling-based pricing and its welfare effects

Abstract

Consumer stockpiling involves the intertemporal demand substitution that allows the firm to differentiate stockpilers from others and employ varying pricing strategies. In this paper, I set up a two-period monopoly model that incorporates consumer stockpiling behavior to investigate the effect of stockpiling-based pricing. In equilibrium, I show that when the level of heterogeneity among consumers is high, consumer stockpiling can be used as a device for the firm to identify preferences and price discrimination. Welfare analysis suggests that consumer stockpiling improves consumer surplus and profit despite the associated stockpiling-based pricing.