Theoretical Economics

Journal of the Econometric Society

Edited by: Federico Echenique • ISSN (e): 1555-7561 • ISSN (print): 1933-6837

Theoretical Economics: Jan, 2019, Volume 14, Issue 1

On competitive nonlinear pricing

https://doi.org/10.3982/TE2708
p. 297-343

Andrea Attar, Thomas Mariotti, François Salanié

We study a discriminatory limit-order book in which market makers compete in nonlinear tariffs to serve a privately informed insider. Our model allows for general nonparametric specifications of preferences and arbitrary discrete distributions for the insider's private information. Adverse selection severely restricts equilibrium outcomes: in any pure-strategy equilibrium with convex tariffs, pricing must be linear and at most one type can trade, leading to an extreme form of market breakdown. As a result, such equilibria only exist under exceptional circumstances that we fully characterize. These results are strikingly different from those of existing analyses that postulate a continuum of types. The two approaches can be reconciled when we consider E-equilibria of games with a large number of market makers or a large number of types.


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