This paper reconsiders the question of third-degree input price discrimination assuming a Mussa-Rosen(1978) style vertical differentiation between downstream firms. We show that, in contrast with the traditional analyses of homogeneous goods, input pr...
This paper reconsiders the question of third-degree input price discrimination assuming a Mussa-Rosen(1978) style vertical differentiation between downstream firms. We show that, in contrast with the traditional analyses of homogeneous goods, input price discrimination can improve the allocation efficiency of differentiated products and with this additional gain total welfare may increase even without an expansion of total quantity. Also, the effect on consumer surplus is quite different from the previous result obtained for price discrimination in a final-good market. These results shed new light on public policy toward input price discrimination.