【摘要】 随着数字经济的快速发展，企业能够获取越来越多的消费者信息，并具备对消费者实行差异化定价从而提升自身利润的能力，这体现为企业的信息优势。同时，企业可以致力于技术创新，通过降低生产成本从而增加自身利润，这体现为企业的技术优势。本文通过构建Hotelling双寡头模型，分析了竞争环境下分别具有信息优势和技术优势的寡头企业如何进行博弈互动，及其对市场结构和社会福利的影响。本文的结论表明：（1）站在企业的角度，技术优势的效应具有连续性，任何细微的技术提升对企业提升利润都有利无弊；信息优势的效应具有突变性，只有当信息优势足够大时，企业才有动机选择发挥信息优势。（2）站在社会规制者的角度，发挥信息优势的企业需要同时拥有足够大的技术优势才能提升社会福利。企业如果只拥有单方面的信息优势，实行差异化定价对社会弊大于利。本文进一步讨论当每家企业的可行策略发生变化时的市场均衡，发现在一定条件下政府可以通过适当的规制政策引导企业进行技术创新，从而提升社会福利。本文的结论不仅有助于深入理解数字经济市场中企业的竞争策略，还能够为政府促进数字经济健康有序发展提供理论指导和政策建议。更多还原

【Abstract】 In the information age, the rapid development of the digital economy firms has had a significant impact on global social and economic conditions. Within the digital economy market, there are typically two types of firms: the first type boasts consumer information and can implement price discrimination; the second type has an advantage in technological innovation and lower production costs. The competition between these two types of firms has been referred to as the “virtual versus real competition”, in which the “virtual” side represents the informational advantage, while the “real” side refers to the technological advantage. This paper, based on a duopoly competition model, explores the issue of asym-metric competition between these two types of firms and analyzes the effects of informational and technological advantages on market structure and social welfare.This paper constructs a Hotelling duopoly competition model, in which the comparison between informational advantage and technological advantage is concretized as the competition between a firm with consumer information and a firm with a lower marginal cost. We examine the case of two-dimensional asymmetry, where firm 1 has a technological advantage and firm 2 has an informational advantage. In stage 1, firm 2 decides whether to collect consumer information.In stage 2, depending on the decision by firm 2 in the previous stage, either firms 1 and 2 independently decide their own uniform price, or firm 1 first sets its uniform price and firm 2 then adopts a differential pricing strategy by utilizing its informational advantage. In the last stage, every consumer chooses which firm to purchase from.We show that(1) for firms, the effect of technological advantage is “continuous”, meaning that improvements in technology inevitably lead to increased profits. In contrast, the effect of informational advantage is “discontinuous”,meaning that a firm will only collect consumer information and implement price discrimination when the informational advantage is sufficiently large.(2) For society, price discrimination can effectively enhance overall social welfare only when one firm has both significant informational and technological advantages. Otherwise, the negative impact of price discrimination on society outweighs the positive impact. We also show that asymmetric price discrimination intensifies market competition, thereby increasing consumer surplus and reducing producer surplus.From the regulator’s perspective, this paper provides several key policy implications. First, the government should encourage technological innovation. The long-term stable benefits brought by technological innovation are important for firms, and the government can reduce innovation costs through tax incentives, R&D subsidies, and other measures to enhance overall social welfare. Second, regarding information collection and personalized pricing, the government should adopt a tailored approach rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. For firms with an informational advantage, the government should carefully regulate their price discrimination behavior to prevent low-tech firms from dominating the market,which could reduce market efficiency. For industries with low product differentiation, the government should relax restrictions on information collection, while for highly differentiated industries, it should focus on regulating information collection to prevent excessive consumer data collection. Finally, the paper suggests that the government can guide firms in im-proving technological capabilities through industrial policies and regulatory frameworks to avoid a “prisoner’s dilemma” in the market and promote the sustained development of the entire industry.Compared to existing literature, this paper proposes a new setting, introducing factors such as technological advantage to enrich the research on price discrimination. It explores how technological differences influence the optimal pricing strategies of firms with an informational advantage. The findings contribute to the existing literature on price discrimination. Additionally, existing studies on duopoly competition are mainly conducted under symmetric settings, while this paper focuses on the co-existence of informational asymmetry and technological asymmetry, providing a more realistic portrayal of market competition and extending the scope of previous research.更多还原