Demographics, gender and local knowledge - Price discrimination in China's car market

In this paper we examine price differentials across various groups in the Chinese automobile market between 2007 and 2009 using a unique detailed dataset on over 145,000 transactions which allows us to control for a wide variety of buyer, vehicle, location, and dealer characteristics. We focus on gender based price discrimination and how it interacts with the origin of the buyer. We find that, controlling for a wide array of other characteristics men pay lower prices for cars than women. Additionally, men who live locally or who were born locally receive additional discounts relative to non-locals, but interestingly, this effect is not present for women.