As students, many of you probably have a student identification card, which you might use when you go to the cinema or when you buy something in a shop offering student discounts. Your parents or grandparents, if they are 60 or over, may get similar discounts, and your younger siblings or nieces and nephews may pay nothing for certain services.
It doesn’t cost a cinema more to provide a seat for an adult than it does for a child, a student or a senior citizen. So, why is it that firms can charge different groups of consumers different prices, even though they are consuming the same good or service? We are, of course, referring to the ability of a firm to price discriminate. The following short cases look at the concept in action.
Price discrimination: Russians get a discount Daily Markets, Mark Perry (12/10/10)
Theme park tickets and passes for Florida residents Walt Disney World 2010
Price discrimination: India and Disney World Daily Markets, Mark Perry (10/10/10)
Freedom’s just another word for getting a state subsidy The Economist (18/10/10)
Questions
- What are the different types of price discrimination?
- In the cases in the articles above, what type of price discrimination is being used?
- Illustrate this concept on a diagram and explain why a firm would use price discrimination. How will it affect revenue and profits?
- What are the key conditions needed for price discrimination to take place? In the cases above, why is it that British consumers are charged a higher price? What does this tell us about their price elasticity of demand?
- What forms of price discrimination (a) are being practised by US private universities and (b) being proposed in the Browne report for students at English universities?
- What other examples of price discrimination can you think of? Try and think of examples that fit into the different types of price discrimination.
The News is something that we probably take for granted. For many, it’s the first thing they switch on in the morning, or it’s something you listen to while you drive to work or before you go to bed. But, tomorrow and Saturday (5 and 6 Nov) could be a different story, as the BBC faces a 48-hour strike over pensions, which has been organised by the National Union of Journalists. Star presenters, including Fiona Bruce, are expected to participate in the walkout, which will lead to News Bulletins being hit, Newsnight facing disruption and certain radio programmes being cancelled. The Director General of the BBC made a last minute plea to those participating in the walk-out, as core news services across both TV and radio will suffer, as there simply aren’t sufficient resources to provide the necessary cover.
The strike follows significant changes to the BBC’s final salary pension scheme, in response to a growing pension deficit. The BBC plans to reduce the £1.5bn pension deficit by capping increases in pensionable pay at 1% from next April. Although some negotiations have already taken place, the NUJ claims that the BBC ‘has no appetite for negotiation’. After negotiations, employee contributions were reduced from 7% to 6% and a career average pension scheme would be introduced to replace the final salary pension scheme, which is very lucrative for the worker, but hugely expensive for the firm. Despite these changes, members of the NUJ still believe the proposals are fundamentally ‘unfair’.
This strike is unlikely to be the only disruption faced by the public, as further action is expected to occur throughout the rest of November and there are also concerns that Christmas broadcasts may face interruption. Those NUJ members taking part in the walk-out are expected to experience a significant loss in earnings, without there being any noticeable benefit in the long term. Although some will support the strike action, many will be unimpressed. As the Director General wrote in an email to all BBC staff:
“The public – many of whom are facing difficult employment and economic pressures – will find it very hard to understand why the BBC’s service to them should be impaired in this way”.
Articles
Report
Questions
- What is the difference between a final salary pension scheme and a career average pension scheme? Which is more beneficial for a) the recipient of the pension and b) the pension provider?
- Is anyone likely to benefit from this 48-hour strike? (Think about who the BBC’s competitors are.)
- The BBC article says that ‘payments will increase automatically each year in line with inflation’. What does this mean? Are increases in payments that are indexed to inflation better than payments being indexed to earnings? Explain your answer.
- Apart from striking against changes to pensions, what are some of the other typical reasons for strike action?
- How effective are strikes likely to be? What are the key determinants of the success or failure of them?