Certain forms of price discrimination in oligopoly markets can lead to more aggressive competition and lower profits, yet few empirical studies examine how extensively such strategies are used. I consider one such strategy, testing whether airlines charge different prices on the same flights to passengers that originate from different endpoints. Using fare quote data I formulate a new approach to measure discrimination while controlling for cost heterogeneity and find that carriers within the U.S. domestic market do not engage in directional price discrimination despite frequently using other similar pricing strategies that are unlikely to enhance competition.

中文翻译：

---

关于美国航空业缺乏定向价格歧视*

寡头市场中某些形式的价格歧视会导致更激烈的竞争和更低的利润，但是很少有实证研究研究此类策略的使用范围。我考虑了一种这样的策略，即测试航空公司是否在针对不同终点的同一航班上向乘客收取不同的价格。通过使用票价报价数据，我制定了一种在控制成本异质性的同时衡量歧视的新方法，发现尽管经常使用其他不太可能增强竞争的类似定价策略，美国国内市场内的运营商也没有进行定向价格歧视。