TY  - JOUR
AU  - Reiss,Peter C.
AU  - White,Matthew W.
TI  - Evaluating Welfare with Nonlinear Prices
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12370
PY  - 2006
Y2  - July 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12370
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12370.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Peter C. Reiss
Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-5015
Tel: 650/725-2759
Fax: 650/725-7979
E-Mail: preiss@leland.stanford.edu

Matthew White
ISO New England
One Sullivan Drive
Holyoke, MA 01040
E-Mail: matthew.white.phd@gmail.com
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2006-07-24
AB  - This paper examines how to evaluate consumer welfare when consumers face nonlinear prices. This problem arises in many settings, such as devising optimal pricing strategies for firms, assessing how price discrimination affects consumers, and evaluating the efficiency costs of many transfer programs in the public sector. We extend prior methods to accommodate a broad range of modern pricing practices, including menus of pricing plans. This analysis yields a simpler and more general technique for evaluating exact consumer surplus changes in settings where consumers face nonlinear prices. We illustrate our method using recent changes in mobile phone service plans.
ER  -