学术活动

标题:

日期和时间: 

2025年1月10日（周五）
10:30-12:00

地点

主讲人:

With the growing adoption of algorithmic pricing, its potential bias against certain demographic groups (e.g., minorities or women) has become a rising concern. This paper investigates two approaches aimed at ensuring fairness in algorithmic pricing and examines their implications for firm profits and consumer welfare. Specifically, the ``Ban" approach prohibits the use of protected characteristics, like race or gender, in pricing algorithms. However, biases may persist, as demographic data often correlates with other factors. In contrast, the ``Parity" approach allows the use of all information but requires that average prices be equal across demographic groups.
We employ a stylized model in which a firm uses algorithmic pricing to target consumer groups with different willingness to pay. The accuracy of targeting may depend on the availability of demographic data as well as other individual-level information (e.g., purchase history). Our findings suggest that Parity can lead to a Pareto improvement relative to Ban, benefiting both the firm and consumers. This occurs when demographic information complements other targeting data, especially when the protected demographic group is small (e.g., an ethnic minority) but more vulnerable to surplus extraction due to targeted pricing.  Thus, Parity could be a favored regulatory approach to achieve fair algorithmic pricing, especially for minority groups at risk of price discrimination. We demonstrate that these results remain robust when the firm endogenously invests in improving targeting accuracy. Furthermore, in scenarios where consumers opt-in to personalized pricing, Parity may further enhance welfare by promoting consumer participation.

主讲人简介:

刘其宏是美国俄克拉荷马大学经济系正教授（终身教职）。于2003年纽约州立大学获得经济学博士学位。其主要研究领域是平台和双边市场，航空业和定价策略。曾在Review of Economics and Statistics, Strategic Management Journal, Marketing Science, Management Science, European Economic Review, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Journal of Industrial Economics, 经济学季刊 等刊物上发表30多篇论文。他的研究被美国农业部资助, 以及被Bloomberg, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Insider Higher Ed, Kellogg Insight, MorningStar 和 Wall Street Journal 等主流媒体引用。 
现任Information Economics and Policy 和Journal of Media Economics 杂志副主编，Marketing Science 和Journal of Media Economics杂志编委。担任留美经济学会 (Chinese Economists Society) 会长（2022-2023）和China Economic Review杂志特刊特邀编辑。
个人网页：http://qliu.oucreate.com/