This thesis aims to investigate the phenomenon popularly referred to as the pink tax, otherwise known as gender-based price discrimination in the Swedish hygiene product market. The subject is thoroughly researched in markets like the United States and the United Kingdom, where evidence has been found that a pink tax does exist. Thus, women tend to pay more for initially the same product than men, where seemingly, the only difference between the two is packaging and/or fragrance. The sample collection consists of five different product categories: razor blades, razors, shaving cream, deodorant, and soap. The samples have all been collected manually from 16 different locations, distributed at a 38 km radius between the area Skövde to Mariestad in Västra Götaland, Sweden.  Inspired by previous research, this study starts examining the market using a t-test. To further the investigation, two types of regression models are used. The findings support the possibility of a pink tax existing in the Swedish market. Where the largest and most stable regression showed a 4,1% difference in prices for female versus male products. Hence, women tend to pay 4,1% more for hygiene products and the research can conclude that prices are not statistically equal. From this result, we recommend the Swedish customer protection agency- Diskrimineringsombudmannen, to further work on the laws against price discrimination by clarification of guidelines and construction of a stricter legal environment to prevent gender-based price discrimination in the future.

Title: Willing to shop like a (wo)man? - A consumer perspective on the perception of Pink Tax Subject: Bachelor thesis in business administration, 15 hp Authors: Maja Eriksson & Elina Magnusson Purpose: The purpose of this study is, therefore, to compare the perceptions about the Pink Tax between men and women in Sweden, including how the price influences the willingness to buy as well as perceived price fairness and perception of gendered products. Methodology: The study was conducted by qualitative interviews with a semi structured interview. 8 respondents within the ages of 20-25 were interviewed. Empirical findings: Swedish men and women both perceive Pink Tax as discriminatory and unethical. They also share an understanding of the potential consequences of the issue. Both men and women are heavily influenced by the gender specification of products and gender based marketing. Women have a more extensive awareness of the Pink Tax and the price discrimination it causes. Men however, understand the reasonings behind gender based pricing to a greater extent than women do. Women are more likely to purchase items marketed towards the opposite sex than men are. Lastly, men and women’s shopping behaviors are based on internal and external factors such as the involvement of products and personal values, rather than solely being distinguished by their gender. Limitations: Due to the limited time frame given, the respondents for the empirical study had to be limited, making it more difficult to generalize the results on the entire swedish population within the ages 20-25. Implications: Bringing attention to the unexplored issue of perception of the Pink Tax on the Swedish market is something this study aims to shine a light on. In the hope of stimulating the conversation of the Pink Tax, the society could become more aware of this subject, provoking action from companies as well as legislators in addition to increasing the knowledge among consumers.  Key words: Pink Tax, price discrimination, gender based pricing, perception, pricing, purchases, gender, men, women and Sweden.

The primary goal of this study was to determine the impact of price discrimination on tourism demand. Four objectives were defined with reference to the primary research goal. The first objective was to analyse the concept of price discrimination and relevant theories by means of a literature study. In this regard it was found that price discrimination between markets is fairly common and that it occurs if the same goods were sold to different customers at different prices. Price discrimination is also possible as soon as some monopoly power exists and it is feasible when it is impossible or at least impractical for the buyers to trade among themselves. Three different kinds of price discrimination can be applied, namely first-degree, second-degree and third-degree price discrimination. The data also indicated that price discrimination is advantageous (it mainly increases profit) and that it has several other effects too. The second objective was to analyse examples of price discrimination by means of international case studies. In these different case studies it was found that demand and supply, therefore consumer and product, formed the basis of price discrimination. If demand did not exist, it would be impossible to apply price discrimination. The findings also indicated that, for an organisation to be able to practice price discrimination, the markets must be separated effectively and it will only be successful if there is a significant difference in demand elasticity between the different consumers. Furthermore, the ability to charge these different prices will depend on the consumer's ability and willingness to pay. If an organisation should decide to price discriminate, it would lead to a higher profit, a more optimal pricing policy and also to an increase in sales. The third objective was to analyse national case studies. This was done through comparing the data of a tourism organisation price discriminating (Mosetlha Bush Camp, situated in the North West) to two organisations that did not implement price discrimination (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the Northern Cape and Golden Leopard Resort, also situated in the North West). It was found that a customer with low price elasticity is less deterred by a higher price than a customer with a high price elasticity of demand. As long as the customer's price elasticity is less than one, it will be very advantageous to increase the price: the seller will in this case get more money for less goods. With the increase in price the price elasticity tends to rise above one. The fourth objective was to draw conclusions and make recommendations. It was concluded that price discrimination could be applied successfully in virtually any organisation or industry. Furthermore, price discrimination does not always have a negative effect; but can have a positive ass well. It can have a positive effect on tourism demand. The findings emphasised that the main reason for implementing price discrimination is to increase profit at the cost of reducing consumer surplus. From the results it was recommended that more research on this topic should be conducted. / Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

This dissertation is a collection of five essays examining different aspects of consumer and firm behavior in dynamic markets. The first essay combines clickstreams of users at a major news website with Facebook activity data, to study if social networks complement or compete for online browsing time. This is the first empirical study to show that Facebook activity increases time spent on news sites. Online news consumption is a shared experience, as the activity of social network friends strongly influences the behavior of other network members. We also find that visitors’ own browsing patterns are important predictors of online content consumption. The second essay examines consumer attitudes to risk and uncertainty vis-a-vis their purchase and search decisions for air tickets online. Using a two-stage model of purchase incidence and carrier choice, we find that browsing experience, search costs and product characteristics are important predictors of purchase incidence. Implications for website managers are also discussed. The third essay provides insights on the impact of customer heterogeneity and preference stochasticity on behavior based price discrimination. While customer heterogeneity intensifies competition, resulting in greater price discrimination, preference stochasticity reduces the incidence of price discrimination. Overall, the effect of preference stochasticity is more salient. The fourth essay presents models of strategic interaction to analyze the impact of dominance and concentration on pricing strategies. We show that lack of market dominance is a sufficient condition for discounts to existing customers. We further test our predictions via an experiment with pricing professionals. The behavior of professionals confirms that price discrimination increases with market dominance and concentration; however, lack of dominance is not a sufficient condition for loyalty discounts. We contend that increasing competition is a more effective means of improving consumer welfare compared to regulating dominant firms. The fifth essay considers the role of identity and customer type recognition in influencing pricing behavior in dynamic markets with symmetric and asymmetric players. When customer identity is detectable firms charge higher prices to repeat customers while new customers are offered lower prices. However, pricing behavior changes when information on customer type is available and this behavior varies with market structure. Age, education and experience of managers are also found to significantly influence pricing behavior.

Apresentamos três estudos sobre os assuntos mencionados no título. O primeiro, econométrico, avalia os impactos da quebra de exclusividade no lado credenciador da indústria de cartões de pagamentos no Brasil que ocorreu em 2010. Por um lado, tentamos a construção de um grupo de controle e, por outro, fazemos a decomposição dos preços em markup e custo marginal. As estimações, que empregam um banco de dados com informações individuais para os maiores lojistas de cada setor, apontam para o sucesso dessa intervenção na promoção da concorrência. No segundo artigo, propomos que cobranças indevidas feitas por instituições financeiras podem ser uma forma de discriminação de preços, já que sua devolução demanda esforço dos consumidores. Nesse caso, tendo em vista que as cobranças indevidas ótimas dependem do perfil do consumidor, construímos um teste baseado numa função de verossimilhança para mostrar como a informação de reclamações poderia ser utilizada para detectar esse tipo de comportamento, mesmo quando a autoridade interessada nesse monitoramento sabe menos sobre os clientes que a instituição financeira. O terceiro artigo, teórico aplicado, estuda o comportamento de plataformas comerciais em mercados de dois lados nos quais os papéis de compradores e vendedores são bem definidos e há heterogeneidade dentro de cada um desses grupos de agentes. Diferentemente do que ocorre no caso em que os interesses são simétricos, no lado vendedor não ocorre autosseleção dos participantes e a plataforma passa a ter um papel de certificação dos vendedores, criando ambientes de qualidade selecionada onde um preço maior pode ser cobrado dos compradores. / This thesis has three papers related to the subject in the title. The first one, an econometric paper, evaluates the impact of a break of exclusivity promoted by Brazilian authorities in the payment card acquiring industry in 2010. We use two frameworks: in one of them, we try to identify categories of merchants to use as control group, while in the other we decompose prices into markup and marginal cost elements. The estimations employ a dataset of individual merchants with information for the largest ones in each category. The results indicate success in promoting some competition. In the second paper, we argue that undue charges made by financial institutions may be a form of price discrimination, since their reversion requires effort from consumers. Given that in such case the optimal undue charges depend on consumers profiles, we build a likelihood function based test to show how information on complaints might be used to detect this sort of behavior, even when the relevant authority knows less about clients than the financial institution. The third one, an applied theoretical paper, analyses the behavior of commercial platforms in two-sided markets where the roles of buyers and sellers are well defined and there is heterogeneity within each of these groups of agents. Differently from what happens in a setting with symmetric interests, in the seller side no self-selection takes place and the platform gains an important quality certification role, creating spaces for trade where seller quality is higher and buyers are willing to pay more.

<p><strong>Syfte</strong>: Studiens syfte är att analysera hur flygbolaget Ryanair prissätter sina flygbiljetter och om det skiljer sig beroende på flygsträcka.</p><p><strong>Metod</strong>: En kvalitativ longitudinell studie med deduktiv ansats där primärdata i form av prisuppgifter samlats in från Ryanairs hemsida.</p><p><strong>Teorier</strong>: Prisdiskriminering, Priselasticitetshävstång, Operationell hävstång och Hallbergs prisstrategier.</p><p><strong>Slutsats</strong>: Studiens resultat bekräftar Anjos, Chengs och Curries teori om att lågprisflygbiljetter håller sig på en ganska stabil nivå fram till att det återstår ungefär 20 dagar kvar till avresa, då priset stiger fram till avgångsdagen då det är som högst. Detta motsäger Anderson och Wilsons teori om att biljettpriset går i cykler och att flygbiljetterna är som dyrast några dagar före avresa för att sedan sjunka i pris. Den höga prishöjningen på avgångsdagen sker konsekvent på alla de undersökta flygsträckorna och är intressant eftersom höga priser inte är något som lågprisflygbolagen vill förknippas med. Förklaringen kan vara det som diskuteras av Piga och Bachis om att flygbolagen försöker skapa en osäkerhet hos resenärer kring när det är billigast att köpa sina flygbiljetter. Studien resultat visar också på att det går att se ett mönster i prissättningen av flygbiljetter på Ryanairs resmål med få flygningar medan de mer populära resmålen har en mer dynamisk prissättning som är desto svårare att förutspå.</p> / <p>The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to analyze how the airline Ryanair is pricing their tickets and if there is a distinction between different flight destinations. The thesis used a deductive approach and the data (ticket prices) was collected during a time period of 53 days from Ryanair’s internet homepage. The theories used to analyze the data were price discrimination, price elasticity leverage, operating leverage and four different price strategies presented by Niklas L. Hallberg. The result shows that Ryanair uses second degree of price discrimination in all of the observed flights at the departure day. As for the rest, the result shows that there is a distinction between how Ryanair uses pricing as a strategy depending on what the destination is. The conclusion of the thesis is that Ryanair uses different price strategies depending on how popular the specific flight or destination is. The more popular the flight or destination is, the more dynamic the price is and the harder it is to predict the coming price. The pricing of the more popular flights could be, as presented by Piga and Bachis, a way of creating an uncertainty when it is the cheapest to buy airline tickets. Further the Study confirms Anjos, Cheng and Currie’s theory that the prices low-fare tickets are at a stable level until it remains about 20 days until departure, when the price increases until the departure date. This contradicts Anderson and Wilson’s theory that the ticket price goes in cycles where the price is at the highest level some days before departure before it starts to decrease.</p>

Syfte: Studiens syfte är att analysera hur flygbolaget Ryanair prissätter sina flygbiljetter och om det skiljer sig beroende på flygsträcka. Metod: En kvalitativ longitudinell studie med deduktiv ansats där primärdata i form av prisuppgifter samlats in från Ryanairs hemsida. Teorier: Prisdiskriminering, Priselasticitetshävstång, Operationell hävstång och Hallbergs prisstrategier. Slutsats: Studiens resultat bekräftar Anjos, Chengs och Curries teori om att lågprisflygbiljetter håller sig på en ganska stabil nivå fram till att det återstår ungefär 20 dagar kvar till avresa, då priset stiger fram till avgångsdagen då det är som högst. Detta motsäger Anderson och Wilsons teori om att biljettpriset går i cykler och att flygbiljetterna är som dyrast några dagar före avresa för att sedan sjunka i pris. Den höga prishöjningen på avgångsdagen sker konsekvent på alla de undersökta flygsträckorna och är intressant eftersom höga priser inte är något som lågprisflygbolagen vill förknippas med. Förklaringen kan vara det som diskuteras av Piga och Bachis om att flygbolagen försöker skapa en osäkerhet hos resenärer kring när det är billigast att köpa sina flygbiljetter. Studien resultat visar också på att det går att se ett mönster i prissättningen av flygbiljetter på Ryanairs resmål med få flygningar medan de mer populära resmålen har en mer dynamisk prissättning som är desto svårare att förutspå. / The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to analyze how the airline Ryanair is pricing their tickets and if there is a distinction between different flight destinations. The thesis used a deductive approach and the data (ticket prices) was collected during a time period of 53 days from Ryanair’s internet homepage. The theories used to analyze the data were price discrimination, price elasticity leverage, operating leverage and four different price strategies presented by Niklas L. Hallberg. The result shows that Ryanair uses second degree of price discrimination in all of the observed flights at the departure day. As for the rest, the result shows that there is a distinction between how Ryanair uses pricing as a strategy depending on what the destination is. The conclusion of the thesis is that Ryanair uses different price strategies depending on how popular the specific flight or destination is. The more popular the flight or destination is, the more dynamic the price is and the harder it is to predict the coming price. The pricing of the more popular flights could be, as presented by Piga and Bachis, a way of creating an uncertainty when it is the cheapest to buy airline tickets. Further the Study confirms Anjos, Cheng and Currie’s theory that the prices low-fare tickets are at a stable level until it remains about 20 days until departure, when the price increases until the departure date. This contradicts Anderson and Wilson’s theory that the ticket price goes in cycles where the price is at the highest level some days before departure before it starts to decrease.

Questa tesi studia da una prospettiva teorica le implicazioni della discriminazione del prezzo in oligopoli spaziali. Nel capitolo 1 presentiamo una raccolta selettiva dei principali articoli riguardanti discriminazione del prezzo e differenziazione del prodotto nel modello di Hotelling. Nel capitolo 2 studiamo l’incentivo per le imprese a discriminare quando la differenziazione del prodotto è endogena. Due diverse versioni di un gioco a tre stadi sono considerate. Nella prima versione, le imprese prima scelgono quale varietà produrre, poi scelgono se discriminare o non discriminare, e infine fissano i prezzi. Emerge un Dilemma del Prigioniero: le imprese discriminano e i profitti sono inferiori di quelli che sarebbero emersi in caso di prezzo uniforme. Nella seconda versione del gioco i primi due stadi sono invertiti: in questo caso, in equilibrio nessuna impresa discrimina e non c’è Dilemma del Prigioniero. Nel capitolo 3 studiamo la relazione tra sostenibilità della collusione e differenziazione del prodotto quando le imprese possono discriminare. Analizziamo tre schemi collusivi: collusione sui prezzi discriminatori, collusione su un prezzo uniforme, collusione per non discriminare. Otteniamo che la sostenibilità del primo e del terzo schema non dipende dalla differenziazione del prodotto, mentre la sostenibilità del secondo schema dipende negativamente della differenziazione del prodotto. / This thesis studies from a theoretical point of view the implications of price discrimination in spatial oligopolies. In Chapter 1, we provide a selective survey of the main contributions regarding price discrimination and product differentiation in the Hotelling framework. In Chapter 2 we study the firms’ incentive to price discriminate when product differentiation is endogenous. Two different versions of a three-stage game are considered. In the first version, firms first choose which variety to produce, then choose whether to price discriminate or not, then set prices. A Prisoner Dilemma arises: firms price discriminate and profits are lower than under uniform pricing. In the second version of the game, the first two stages are reversed: in this case uniform pricing emerges in equilibrium and there is not Prisoner Dilemma. In Chapter 3, we study the relationship between product differentiation and collusion sustainability when firms may price discriminate. Three different collusive schemes are analyzed: collusion on discriminatory prices, collusion on a uniform price, and collusion not to discriminate. We obtain that the sustainability of the first and the third scheme does not depend on product differentiation, while the sustainability of the second scheme depends negatively on product differentiation.

The primary goal of this study was to determine the impact of price discrimination on tourism demand. Four objectives were defined with reference to the primary research goal. The first objective was to analyse the concept of price discrimination and relevant theories by means of a literature study. In this regard it was found that price discrimination between markets is fairly common and that it occurs if the same goods were sold to different customers at different prices. Price discrimination is also possible as soon as some monopoly power exists and it is feasible when it is impossible or at least impractical for the buyers to trade among themselves. Three different kinds of price discrimination can be applied, namely first-degree, second-degree and third-degree price discrimination. The data also indicated that price discrimination is advantageous (it mainly increases profit) and that it has several other effects too. The second objective was to analyse examples of price discrimination by means of international case studies. In these different case studies it was found that demand and supply, therefore consumer and product, formed the basis of price discrimination. If demand did not exist, it would be impossible to apply price discrimination. The findings also indicated that, for an organisation to be able to practice price discrimination, the markets must be separated effectively and it will only be successful if there is a significant difference in demand elasticity between the different consumers. Furthermore, the ability to charge these different prices will depend on the consumer's ability and willingness to pay. If an organisation should decide to price discriminate, it would lead to a higher profit, a more optimal pricing policy and also to an increase in sales. The third objective was to analyse national case studies. This was done through comparing the data of a tourism organisation price discriminating (Mosetlha Bush Camp, situated in the North West) to two organisations that did not implement price discrimination (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the Northern Cape and Golden Leopard Resort, also situated in the North West). It was found that a customer with low price elasticity is less deterred by a higher price than a customer with a high price elasticity of demand. As long as the customer's price elasticity is less than one, it will be very advantageous to increase the price: the seller will in this case get more money for less goods. With the increase in price the price elasticity tends to rise above one. The fourth objective was to draw conclusions and make recommendations. It was concluded that price discrimination could be applied successfully in virtually any organisation or industry. Furthermore, price discrimination does not always have a negative effect; but can have a positive ass well. It can have a positive effect on tourism demand. The findings emphasised that the main reason for implementing price discrimination is to increase profit at the cost of reducing consumer surplus. From the results it was recommended that more research on this topic should be conducted. / Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

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