| dc.description.abstract | The following master thesis aims to study consumer privacy, where I focus on price discrimination and steering in the online market. I look closer at whether consumers will benefit from revealing their preferences or not to the seller. The consumer will need to consider the benefits of more accurate recommendations and possible consequences of higher product prices. My topic question is as follows: Will consumers benefit from voluntarily disclosing their information to the seller? I present two models by Hidir and Vellodi (2021) and Ichihashi (2020), to help find answers to the topic question. The models study the price implications of consumers’ privacy and welfare in the online market. Hidir and Vellodi (2021) focus on price discrimination and introduce incentive-compatible market segmentation. To ensure trade over relevant products, Hidir and Vellodi (2021) state that the consumer needs to partially reveal their information with pooling segments wide enough to keep the prices low and narrow enough to get trade with relevant products. Ichihashi (2020), with a focus on steering, studies a multi-product seller either with a commitment or no-commitment pricing regimes. A consumer discloses information to the seller, which learns the consumer’s preferences, sets prices, and makes product recommendations. | |
