A Theory of Consumer Referral: Revisited

35 Pages Posted: 26 Oct 2013

See all articles by Maria Arbatskaya

Maria Arbatskaya

Emory University - Department of Economics

Hideo Konishi

Boston College - Department of Economics

Date Written: October 23, 2013

Abstract

Jun and Kim (2008) consider the optimal pricing and referral strategy of a monopoly that uses a consumer communication network to spread product information. They show that for any finite referral chain, the optimal policy involves a referral fee that provides strictly positive referral incentives and effective price discrimination among consumers based on their positions in the chain. We revisit this problem to strengthen Jun and Kim's results by weakening their referral condition. Moreover, we characterize the first-best policy when individual-specific referral fees are available and show that it is qualitatively similar to the second-best solution of Jun and Kim (2008).

Keywords: consumer referral policy, referral fee, price discrimination

JEL Classification: D4, D8, L1

Suggested Citation

Arbatskaya, Maria and Konishi, Hideo, A Theory of Consumer Referral: Revisited (October 23, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2345288 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2345288

Maria Arbatskaya (Contact Author)

Emory University - Department of Economics ( email )

1602 Fishburne Drive
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States
404-727-2770 (Phone)
404-727-4639 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://economics.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/biography/arbatskaya-maria.html

Hideo Konishi

Boston College - Department of Economics ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States
617-552-1209 (Phone)
617-552-2308 (Fax)

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