irreversible choice of uncertain technologies with network externalities in this article i explore the problem of sequential and irreversible technology choice in the presence of network externalities when the technologies stochastically evolve over time early potential users are shown to adopt an irreversible technology too early compared to the social optimum the effect of increasing the uncertainty of the technologies on an early potential user s decision is analyzed i find that the sponsor of new emerging technology might choose a research strategy that is too safe i also study the consequences of allowing side payments between generations of consumers and demonstrate that an ex post optimal standardization policy can impair ex ante social welfare

who receives the college wage premium assessing the labor market returns to degrees and college transfer patterns using data from the 1979 national longitudinal survey of youth we estimate wage models in which college educated workers are classified according to their degree attainment college type and college transfer status the detailed taxonomy produces modest improvements in explanatory power relative to standard specifications and reveals considerable heterogeneity in the predicted wages of college educated workers we find that transfer students receive an indirect wage benefit insofar as changing colleges allows them to earn a degree some transfer students receive an additional direct wage benefit presumably because switching schools increases their skill investment opportunities

tipping and concentration in markets with indirect network effects this paper develops a framework for measuring tipping the increase in a firm s market share dominance caused by indirect network effects our measure compares the expected concentration in a market to the hypothetical expected concentration that would arise in the absence of indirect network effects in practice this measure requires a model that can predict the counterfactual market concentration under different parameter values capturing the strength of indirect network effects we build such a model for the case of dynamic standards competition in a market characterized by the classic hardware software paradigm to demonstrate its applicability we calibrate it using demand estimates and other data from the 32 64 bit generation of video game consoles a canonical example of standards competition with indirect network effects in our example we find that indirect network effects can lead to a strong economically significant increase in market concentration we also find important roles for beliefs on both the demand side as consumers tend to pick the product they expect to win the standards war and on the supply side as firms engage in penetration pricing to invest in growing their networks

labor market returns to two and four year college the paper examines labor market returns to a two and four year college education analysis of the 1972 national longitudinal survey of youth observation that the average person who attended a two year college earned about 10 percent more than those without any college education comparison with the wages of those who attended a four year college education

optimal bidding strategies and modeling of imperfect information among competitive generators the emerging electricity market behaves more like an oligopoly than a perfectly competitive market due to special features such as a limited number of producers large investment size barrier to entry transmission constraints and transmission losses which discourage purchase from distant suppliers this makes it practicable for only a few independent power suppliers to service a given geographic region and in this imperfect market each power supplier can increase its own profit through strategic bidding the profit of each supplier is influenced to varying extents by differences in the degree of imperfection of knowledge of rival suppliers a new framework to build bidding strategies for power suppliers in an electricity market is presented in this paper it is assumed that each supplier bids a linear supply function and that the system is dispatched to minimize customer payments each supplier chooses the coefficients in the linear supply function to maximize benefits subject to expectations about how rival suppliers will bid a stochastic optimization formulation is developed and two methods proposed for describing and solving this problem a numerical example serves to illustrate the essential features of the approach and the results are used to investigate the potential market power

a percolation based model explaining delayed takeoff in new product diffusion a model of new product diffusion is proposed in which a site percolation dynamics represents socially driven diffusion of knowledge about the product s characteristics in a population of consumers a consumer buys the new product if her valuation of it formed after her witnessing the product in use among her friends or neighbors is not below the price of the product announced in a given period our model attributes the empirical finding of a delayed takeoff of a new product to a drift of the percolation dynamics from a nonpercolating regime to a percolating regime this drift is caused by learning effects lowering the price of the product or by network effects increasing its individual valuations by consumers both with an increasing number of buyers

product introduction with network externalities the authors study the introduction of a new product in a market with network externalities there is a common presumption that such markets exhibit excess inertia i e that they are biased toward existing products in contrast the authors provide conditions under which equilibrium involves insufficient friction i e a tendency to rush into new incompatible technologies they also analyze the firms incentives to make their products compatible and they show that the firm introducing the new technology is biased against compatibility copyright 1992 by blackwell publishing ltd

pricing a network good to deter entry of a network good we show that the installed user base of a network good can serve a preemptive function similar to that of an investment in capacity if the entrant s good is incompatible with the incumbent s good and there are network externalities in demand consequently the threat of entry can lead the incumbent to set low prices we identify some factors that should be considered in thinking about the welfare eiects of entry deterrence in this and similar models i introduction both sides in us v microsoft seem to agree that microsoft s pricing of windows does not correspond to short run pro t maximization by a monopolist schmalensee s direct testimony argues that microsoft s low prices are due at least in part to its concern that higher prices would encourage other rms to develop competing operating systems while this idea may seem intuitive it has been seen as controversial by some commentators e g hall and hall 1999 because neither side has proposed a formal model where such limit pricing would make sense in response this paper develops a highly simpli ed model of complete information limit pricing based on the idea that the installed base of a network good can ll a preemptive role similar to that of investment in physical capacity to model the role of the incumbent s installed base we assume that there are overlapping generations of consumers each of whom lives for two periods and purchases only when young we also assume there are only two types of consumers and we further assume that the distribution of values is such that the incumbent s steady state pro t is highest when it

installed base and compatibility innovation product preannouncements and predation a good is often more valuable to any user the more others use compatible goods the authors show that this effect may inhibit innovation if an installed base exists and transition to a new standard must be gradual early adopters bear a disproportionate share of transient incompatibility costs this can produce excess inertia the installed base however is stranded if the new standard is adopted this may create excess momentum these dynamic effects have strategic implications temporary price cutting can permanently prevent entry and product preannouncements can be critical in innovation these strategic actions have ambiguous welfare effects

technological change in markets with network externalities abstract this paper examines a duopoly model in which firms have to decide simultaneously on product innovation and compatibility of the successor technologies with the established industry standard we show that in markets with homogeneous consumers there may be a bias towards a new standard excess momentum despite the presence of network externalities and an installed base in markets with heterogeneous consumers sufficient conditions for the coexistence of two incompatible networks are derived and it is shown that both excess momentum and excess inertia are possible

consumer preference for a no choice option the traditional focus in the decision making literature has been on understanding how consumers choose among a given set of alternatives the notion that preference uncertainty may lead to choice deferral when no single alternative has a decisive advantage is tested in seven studies building on recent research the article shows that the decision to defer choice is influenced by the absolute difference in attractiveness among the alternatives provided and is not consistent with trade off difficulty or the theory of search these findings are then extended to show that choice deferral can also be modified for the same alternatives by manipulations that make them appear more similar in attractiveness or that decrease the need to differentiate among them the results are consistent with the notion that preference uncertainty results in a hesitation to commit to any single action since small differences in attractiveness among the alternatives are potentially reversible consistent with this premise the effect of attractiveness difference on choice deferral decreased significantly when subjects were first allowed to practice making monetary trade offs among the available alternatives

hedonic price indexes for spreadsheets and an empirical test for network externalities in this article i first estimate hedonic price equations for computer spreadsheet programs and then use the analysis to empirically test whether network externalities exist in this industry the study shows that consumers are willing to pay a significant premium for spreadsheets that are compatible with the lotus platform and for spreadsheets that offer links to external databases and a similar premium for spreadsheets that offer local area network externalities finally the quality adjusted real price of computer spreadsheets declined by approximately 15 per year from 1986 to 1991

r d in markets with network externalities abstract this paper studies the consequences of network externalities on r d rivalry between an incumbent firm and a potential entrant in the model all differences between the r d projects chosen in market equilibrium and the socially best projects are solely due to network externalities from a welfare perspective the incumbent chooses a too risky and the entrant a too certain r d project rothschild and stiglitz s mean preserving spread criterion is used as a measure of risk adoption of a new standard is more likely in equilibrium than in the social optimum

market structure and the timing of technology adoption with network externalities abstract the paper shows that in the presence of network externalities consumers adopt conventional technologies too early the waiting option for a newly emerging technology is not exercised enough this problem is aggravated when the new technology is provided by a single producer with market power because any positive value created via waiting by current consumers will be ex post appropriated by the monopolist therefore the monopolist s power to extract surplus operates against his own interests in this dynamic setting the paper also shows how the producer of a new technology can partially overcome the problem of too little waiting by using licensing as a commitment device

application of games with incomplete information for pricing electricity in deregulated power pools the authors present a game theory approach to the problem of pricing electricity in deregulated marketplaces they assume that an independent operator receives bids by pool participants and defines transactions among participants by looking for the minimum price that satisfies the demand in the pool the competition among pool participants is modeled as a noncooperative game with incomplete information they assume that each pool participant knows its own operation costs but does not know his opponents operation costs the game with incomplete information is transformed into a game with complete but imperfect information and solved using the nash equilibrium idea the approach presented in this paper is geared towards providing support for pricing electricity in deregulated pools

price competition and compatibility in the presence of positive demand externalities in many cases the benefit to a consumer of a product increases with the number of other users of the same product these demand interdependencies are referred to in the literature as positive demand externalities or network externalities this paper examines the dynamic pricing behaviors of an incumbent and a later entrant with special attention to the impacts of demand externalities compatibility and competition on prices and profits defining market power as the ability to price above a competitor without losing market share we show how demand externalities and installed base combine to confer market power we model optimal pricing as a differential game with the optimal price trajectory established as nash open loop controls for a duopoly durable goods market with strong demand externalities the results show an increasing price trajectory can be optimal as expected a new entrant is better off if its products are compatible with those of the incumbent especially when demand externalities are strong and the installed base of the incumbent is large less intuitively the incumbent as well may be better off agreeing on common standards the comparison of monopoly and duopoly shows that under strong demand externalities and a small installed base the incumbent profits from compatible entry

competition or predation consumer coordination strategic pricing and price floors in network markets although network effects can make predation more likely to succeed we find that the leading anti predation rules may lower or raise efficiency and consumer welfare in network markets we find that a the extensive debates about the correct measure of cost on which to base price floors are unlikely to be productive b the ordover willig rule that is widely thought to be correct in theory but difficult to apply in practice is in fact incorrect in theory and c efficient price floors would have to depend on consumer expectations and coordination processes that are unlikely to be observable in practice

adoptions and orphans in the early microcomputer market in this paper we examine the development of the microcomputer market in the early 1980s cp m a widely adopted operating system was orphaned by the user and the development communities a new operating system dos and a new hardware platform the ibm pc became the predominant industry standard we examine the statistical relationship between data that reflects hardware and software sales for the competing platforms we conclude that the economic processes underlying the development of dos differed from those underlying cp m and that many of these differences related to the role of software development

second sourcing as a commitment monopoly incentives to attract competition we show that a new product monopolist may benefit from delayed competition if consumers incur setup costs setup costs create a dynamic consistency problem the monopolist cannot guarantee low future prices once customers have incurred those costs we show that if customers anticipate this problem the monopolist s profits can be improved through ex ante commitment to competition in the post adoption market if setup costs are large if setup costs are small the monopolist can typically achieve the same level of profits without price commitment as with

indirect network externality effects on product attributes indirect network externality ine effect exists when the utility of a product increases with the greater availability of compatible complementary products we demonstrate that ine effects can vary by product attributes with externality sensitive attributes gaining more from increased availability of complementary products than other attributes past research has assumed that the benefit of increased availability of complementary products e g software accrues to theentireproduct e g hardware utilizing data covering a period from 1985 to 1995 on compact disc player prices attributes and cd titles releases and using a hedonic price approach we find significant positive interactions between cd title availability and two attributes of the cd player namely changer capacity and its oversampling rate in addition to ine attribute interactions increased availability of cd titles is found to have a significant positive impact on the overall price of cd players which is consistent with past research collectively these effects of ine have helped reduce the yearly decline in the price of cd players the finding that ine effects differentially affect different attributes can help managers in decisions such as pricing timing of introduction and changing the levels of ine sensitive attributes

intraconnectivity and interconnectivity when value creation may reduce profits this paper analyses firms decisions to provide connectivity to their customers we distinguish between intraconnectivity the ability of one firm s customers to connect to each other and interconnectivity the ability of one firm s customers to connect with another firm s customers the profitability implications of allowing connectivity are not a straightforward consequence of the consumer value of connectivity because connectivity affects not only the customer value but also the intensity of competition by creating or changing network externality we find that if sales are driven by brand switching rather than by category expansion a firm may find it optimal not to provide intraconnectivity even if providing it is not costly and may find it optimal to provide interconnectivity even at a cost exceeding the consumer value of connectivity on the other hand if category expansion is possible providing intraconnectivity may be profitable in this case either the equilibrium intraconnectivity provision may be asymmetric or both firms may find it individually optimal to provide intraconnectivity under certain conditions in the latter case the firms choice of intraconnectivity is a prisoner s dilemma game

do converters facilitate the transition to a new incompatible technology a dynamic analysis of converters abstract this paper analyzes the process of transition in standards between incompatible technologies when converters are available contrary to a common presumption that converters facilitate the transition from an old technology to an otherwise incompatible new technology i find circumstances in which the possibility of transition is blockaded by the existence of converters in the welfare analysis of converters a distinction is made between ex ante and ex post efficiency effects finally i also analyze the equilibrium behavior in the provision of converters and compare it to the socially optimal outcome

a human capital model of the effects of ability and family background on optimal schooling levels this paper develops a theoretical model of optimal schooling levels where ability and family background are the central explanatory variables we derive schooling demand and supply functions based on individual wealth maximization using nlsy79 data we stratify our sample into one year fte work experience cohorts for 1985 1989 mincer s 1974 overtaking cohort the years of work experience at which individuals observed earnings approximately equal what they would have been based on schooling and ability alone corresponds to 13 fte years of work experience yielding on average a rate of return of 9 6 percent and an average optimal 11 4 years of schooling

education decisions and labour market outcomes the financial return to a college degree is an increasing concern amid rising tuition costs and stagnant wages using the education longitudinal study of 2002 els 2002 i analyse the effect of po

accounting for race and gender differences in college wage premium changes much recent research has been devoted to the rapid rise in the college wage premium during the 1980s 3 5 10 13 14 murphy and welch 13 estimated that between 1979 and 1986 the college wage premium for all age groups increased almost 20 percentage points while the college wage premium for workers with one to five years of experience grew by 38 percentage points while the size of the college wage premium increase is impressive especially among recent graduates there is substantial disparity in this change among individual race gender groups 2 4 coleman 4 found that the wage premium increase for graduates with one to five years of experience was 45 percentage points for white men 30 percentage points for white women and 27 percentage points for black men while the wage premium decreased by 3 percentage points for black women

contracts and externalities how things fall apart a single principal interacts with several agents offering them contracts the crucial assumption of this paper is that the outside option payoffs of the agents depend positively on how many uncontracted or free agents there are we study how such a principal unwelcome though he may be approaches the problem of contract provision to agents when coordination failure among the latter group is explicitly ruled out two variants are considered when the principal cannot re approach agents there is a unique equilibrium in which contract provision is split up into two phases in phase 1 simultaneousoffers at good though varying terms are made to a number of agents in phase 2 offers must be made sequentially and their values are discontinuously lower they are close to the very lowest of all the outside options when the principal can repeatedly approach the same agent there is a multiplicity of equilibria in some of these the agents have the power to force delay they can hold off the principal s overtures temporarily but they must succumb in finite time in both models despite beingable to coordinate their actions agents cannot resist an invasion by the principal and hold to their best payoff it is in this sense that things eventually fall apart

growth incentives to invest in a network externality environment firms that operate in the telecommunications industry often have to make large and risky investments in digital infrastructure this paper examines how firm size affects the incentive to invest in infrastructure projects in industry environments that incur substantial network externalities we suggest that in the presence of network externalities a firm s rate of growth first declines and then increases with the size of its user base an implication of this result is that firms may benefit from making investments in emerging digital infrastructure early enough to achieve a substantial user base and to gain that user base before other firms investments pre empt them the results mean that firms that undertake earlier successful investment may achieve preemption very quickly the sources of network externalities contribute to the incidence of strategic alliances in network industries particularly when coupled with the pressures of technical uncertainty copyright 1998 by oxford university press

positive and negative feedback effects in competition for dominance of network business systems this paper extends the existing research on the interplay of positive and negative feedback dynamics in the competition for business system dominance by building on an analysis of the digital television launch in the united kingdom we find that the expectation of network externalities intensifies competition causing strong negative feedback effects to emerge actions aimed at improving one s position are systematically imitated and pre emptied pressure builds up in the business system and only when the weakest firms exit the positive feedback effects are unleashed in their full magnitude our findings contribute to an improved understanding of institutional dynamics in new technology introduction

estimates of the economic returns to schooling from a new sample of twins this paper uses a new survey to contrast the wages of genetically identical twins with different schooling levels multiple measurements of schooling levels were also collected to assess the effect of reporting error on the estimated economic returns to schooling the data indicate that omitted ability variables do not bias the estimated return to schooling upward but that measurement error does bias it downward adjustment for measurement error indicates that an additional year of schooling increases wages by 12 to 16 percent a higher estimate of the economic returns to schooling than has been previously found copyright 1994 by american economic association

games with incomplete and asymmetric information in poolco markets strategic equilibrium solutions as a result of gaming by electricity market participants have been the subject of various recent studies yet in many of the tools developed for finding those strategic solutions either information is regarded as being complete or the complexities of the transmission system are disregarded since the assumption of complete information is neither absolutely correct nor absolutely necessary for the more complex models these models need to be extended the strategic solutions attained in these incomplete information or bayesian games are bayesian nash equilibria the central thrust of the paper is on bringing the representation of incomplete and asymmetric information in strategic games together with some of the transmission system constraints for this purpose the paper focuses on a specific strategic game model referred to as the iwm numerical examples using the ieee 57 bus system that deal with the power flow equality constraints are presented as an illustration of the concepts behind the proposed bayesian games

why are the returns to schooling higher for women than for men many studies have found that the impact of schooling on earnings is greater for females than for males despite the fact that females tend to earn less both absolutely and controlling for personal characteristics this study investigates possible reasons for this effect using data from the national longitudinal survey of youth 1979 one explanation is that education appears to have a double effect on the earnings of women it increases their skills and productivity as it does with men and in addition it appears to reduce the gap in male and female earnings attributable to factors such as discrimination tastes and circumstances the latter appear to account for about half of the differential in the returns to schooling

technology adoption in the presence of network externalities we analyze technology adoption in industries where network externalities are significant the pattern of adoption depends on whether technologies are sponsored a sponsor is an entity that has property rights to the technology and hence is willing to make investments to promote it key findings include the following 1 compatibility tends to be undersupplied by the market but excessive standardization can occur 2 in the absence of sponsors the technology superior today has a strategic advantage and is likely to dominate the market 3 when one of two rival technologies is sponsored that technology has a strategic advantage and may be adopted even if it is inferior 4 when two competing technologies both are sponsored the technology that will be superior tomorrow has a strategic advantage

the implicit taxes from college financial aid abstract families who earn more or who heed the experts advice and save for college typically receive less financial aid the financial aid system therefore implicitly taxes both income and assets we use npsas aid award data to estimate these implicit taxes and find that at average priced colleges the marginal income tax ranges from 2 to 16 and the marginal asset levy from 8 to 26 a typical family loses aid worth about 11 000 at average priced colleges and 15 000 at expensive colleges by accumulating an extra 50 000 in assets

network effects on strategic interactions a laboratory approach abstract we examine the effect of interaction structure network on two classes of collective activities herding and shirking respectively referring to the situation where a player s incentive to take a certain action increases and decreases if more of her network neighbors follow the same action in our experiment we find that subjects do not act according to theoretical equilibrium and their frequencies of making the socially beneficial choice in herding and shirking games are inversely influenced by the number of network neighbors they have moreover the observed local network effect is stronger in shirking games while the global network effect is more significantly present in herding games we explain the behavioral regularities through a hybrid learning model which extends sewa learning into a network context as such our learning model provides a foundation for the observed dynamics disequilibrium behavior as well as the local and global network effects

an individual welfare maximization algorithm for electricity markets an algorithm that allows a market participant to maximize its individual welfare in electricity spot markets is presented the use of the algorithm in determining market equilibrium points called nash equilibria is demonstrated the start of the algorithm is a spot market model that uses the optimal power flow opf with a full representation of the transmission system and inclusion of consumer bidding the algorithm utilizes price and dispatch sensitivities available from the hessian matrix and gradient of the opf to help determine an optimal change in an individual s bid the algorithm is shown to be successful in determining local welfare maxima and the prospects for scaling the algorithm up to realistically sized systems are very good nash equilibria are investigated assuming all participants attempt to maximize their individual welfare this is done by iteratively solving the individual welfare maximization algorithm until all individuals stop modifying their bids

local appeal and competition in multiple geographic markets evidence from california retail banking between 1900 and 1990 this article assesses the effect of identity related local appeal when firms compete in multiple geographic markets and investigates how local appeal and multimarket advantages collectively determine the competitive strength of an organization compared with numerous studies that identified the benefits for being a chain system recent researches on organizational identity highlight the social sanctions and discount when an organizational form does not fully conform to the norms and expectations at a given market empirical evidence from california retail banks in the 20th century demonstrates that organizational identity can be an important source of competitive strength even when considerable scale and scope advantages exist however when customers are not locally oriented an organization s identity based appeal becomes less meaningful such a finding suggests the scope condition for organizational identity research

r d rivalry with licensing or imitation the authors study the rivalry between two firms to develop an innovation in a dynamic setting that allows for post development dissemination of the innovation such as licensing or imitation this dissemination may cause the noninnovating firm to benefit from the discovery when this occurs conventional results in the economics of r d no longer need apply they find that industry leaders will tend to develop minor innovations but will develop major innovations only if imitation is difficult copyright 1987 by american economic association

exploration and exploitation in the presence of network externalities this paper examines the conditions under which exploration of a new incompatible technologyis conducive to firm growth in the presence of network externalities in particular this study is motivated by the divergent evolutions of the pc and the workstation markets in response to a new technology reduced instruction set computing risc in the pc market intel has developed new microprocessors by maintaining compatibility with the established architecture whereas it was radically replaced by risc in the workstation market history indicates that unlike the pc market the workstation market consisted of a large number of power users who are less sensitive to compatibility than ordinary users our numerical analysis indicates that the exploration of a new incompatible technology is more likely to increase the chance of firm growth when there are a substantial number of power users or when a new technology is introduced before an established technology takes off

the city network paradigm measuring urban network externalities in recent years network behaviour has been analysed extensively as the emerging model for economic growth by network behaviour a metaphor for co operative behaviour among individuals corporate

open architecture and r d incentives in open systems firms give up their property rights to technologies and permit other companies to use these technologies we ask how an incumbent s architecture choice affects social welfare by altering r d competition among firms more specifically we ask whether an incumbent by adopting an open system can establish its socially inefficient technology as the market standard while an entrant is developing a more efficient technology it is shown that an incumbent has an incentive to preempt an entrant s competing technology by choosing an open system but that the open system might result in a premature market standard

inefficient standard adoption inertia and momentum revisited i introduction since the establishment of the theory of network effects economists have been concerned with the question of whether a market with network effects will tend to settle on the socially optimal standard it has been postulated that markets may exhibit excess inertia once a technological standard is in place a new superior standard may not displace it because of installed base effects alternatively markets may exhibit excess momentum consumers may adopt a new standard too quickly ignoring the stranding effect they are having on previous users similar issues arise in the adoption of language and social norms the literature has investigated various conditions under which one of these inefficiencies arises such inefficiencies are of particular concern for open technologies such as the qwerty and dvorak keyboards 1 the situation is somewhat different when individual firms own standards in that case a simple argument seems to indicate that there is no possibility that an inefficient standard will persist if a new standard is superior in any objective sense there are gains to be made from switching to it once the standard has been adopted the firm can appropriate these gains therefore the firm has incentive to lower the initial price enough to induce adoption of the standard the preceding argument is made in liebowitz and margolis 1999 and repeated in spulber 2002 spulber expresses a general skepticism about the likelihood of inefficiencies when property rights are defined and markets exist critics might claim that previous models that imply inefficient standard adoption are unrealistic in some way and that if such models were modified slightly the inefficiency would disappear i reconsider the issue of inefficient standard adoption using a parsimonious yet compelling model assuming only that there are successive generations of finitely lived consumers that preferences are heterogeneous and that there are network effects among users adoption decisions can be inefficient this is true even if consumers can coordinate efficiently within a generation and a firm can act as a coordinating device across generations the model presented here generates some of the same results found in other papers collectively but in a more general setting and with more robust results if there is an established standard and a superior alternative emerges no single generation of consumers will be willing to switch to the new standard if the switching cost the loss of network benefit from breaking with past users is too high it may be that the benefits to future generations of consumers are large enough that from a social standpoint it would be efficient for one generation to adopt the new standard even if it is privately optimal for that generation to retain the old standard on the other hand the current generation considers only its own switching cost and not the cost it imposes on the previous generation leading to potential overadoption of new technology even for proprietary standards it is not clear that the incentive of the firm to induce adoption matches the social incentive in particular if consumer preferences are heterogeneous the firm will not be able to price in such a way to extract all of the additional surplus gained from the new standard on the other hand the firm will be able to appropriate some of the surplus generated by the network effect itself which is present for any standard and thus does not affect the social incentive to change standards it is not possible to address this issue with a two period model as in some of the previous literature see for example choi 1994 choi and thum 1998 katz and shapiro 1986 if a new technology is introduced in the second period but then the game ends the welfare of future generations of consumers is neglected 2 this article also differs from previous infinite horizon models of technology adoption

modeling the evolution of markets with indirect network externalities an application to digital television the usefulness of a technology product for an end user often depends on the availability of complementary software products and services computers require software cameras require film and dvd players require movie programming in order for customers to value the whole product this phenomenon where the demand for hardware products is mediated by the supply of complementary software products is called an indirect network externality indirect network externalities create a two way contingency between the demand for the hardware product and the supply of software products and result in a strategic interdependence between the actions of hardware manufacturers and the actions of software providers indirect network externalities are gaining economic significance in technology markets because hardware and software are typically provided by independent firms and both sets of firms have an incentive to free ride on each others demand creation efforts despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon it has largely been ignored in the marketing science literature we present a conceptual and operational model for the evolution of markets with indirect network externalities the key feature of our framework is to model the market mediated dependence between the actions of hardware manufacturers and software complementors created by the direct dependence of consumer demand for the whole product on the actions of manufacturers as well as complementors in addition we incorporate marketing mix effects on consumer response aswell as heterogeneity in consumer preferences for hardware and software attributes we model consumer response usinga latent class choice model to estimate the complementor response functions we use a modified delphi technique that allows us to convert qualitative response data into quantitative response functions we integrate the consumer and complementor response models to create a simulation modelthat generates forecasts of market shares and sales volumes for competing technologies as a function of marketing mix effects and exogenously specified regulatory scenarios the modeling framework is of interest to new product modelers interested in creating empirical models and decision support systems for forecasting demand in technology markets characterized by indirect network externalities the decision support aspects of the modeling framework should appeal to managers interested in understanding and quantifying the complex interplay between hardware manufacturers and software complementors in the evolution of markets with indirect network externalities we present an application of the modeling framework to the u s digital television industry and use the framework to characterize the competition among analog and digital tv technologies our results suggest that complementor actions play an important role in the acceptance of digital tv technologies in general and high definition television hdtv in particular we find that forecasts that ignore the influence of indirect network externalities would be seriously biased in favor of hdtv we illustrate how the modeling framework can be used to identify and profile customer segments in the digital tv market based on their utility for hardware related features as well as programming related features we also illustrate the decision support capabilities of the modeling framework by evaluating the sensitivity of the forecasts to varying marketing regulatory and complementor response scenarios we derive implications for marketing and public affairs policies of the hardware manufacturers the developments in the digital tv industry generally support our finding that hdtv will be a niche product and will diffuse slower than originally expected due in part to the lack of programming the delays in the introduction of digital tv to the marketplace also suggest that most forecasts for infrastructure intensive technologies like digital tv may be too optimistic simply because they underestimate the delays in agreeing upon technology standards and resolving regulatory debates

can entrepreneurial firms benefit from product piracy abstract we examine the potential benefits of product piracy to entrepreneurial firms specifically we use a resource based perspective to show that a decrease in the inimitability of an entrepreneurial firm s intellectual property does not necessarily diminish performance when piracy increases the value of this resource and an information economics perspective to explain why and when imitation can increase the value of an intellectual property resource this explanation reconciles empirical studies that indicate mixed results it also expands the resource based view by suggesting that reducing the value of one resource can directly increase the value of another

gainfully employed assessing the employment and earnings of for profit college students using administrative data we draw on population level administrative data from the u s department of education and the internal revenue service to quantify the impact of for profit college attendance on the employment and earnings of more than one million students using a matched comparison group difference in differences design we find that certificate seeking students in for profit institutions are 1 5 percentage points less likely to be employed and conditional on employment have 11 percent lower earnings after attendance than students in public institutions these results hold for both men and women and for seven of the top ten fields of study we find that earnings and employment outcomes are particularly poor for students attending for profit colleges that offer the majority of their courses online and for multicampus chains we find that for profit students experience small statistically insignificant gains in annual earnings after attendance compared to a matched end page 342 control group of young individuals who do not attend college a back of the envelope comparison of these earnings gains to average debt burdens suggests that for profit certificate programs do not pay off for the average student abstract from author

on the diffusion of new technology a game theoretic approach this paper is an attempt at a rigorous albeit not exceedingly general analysis of the diffusion of new technology in particular consider an industry composed of two firms each using the current best practice technology the firms are assumed to be operating at nash equilibrium output levels generating a market price given demand and profit allocations when a cost reducing innovation is announced each firm must determine when if ever to adopt it based in part upon the discounted cost of implementing the new technology and in part upon the behavior of the rival firm if either firm adopts before the other it can expect to make substantial profits at the expense of the other firm on the other hand the discounted sum of purchase price and adjustment costs may decline with the lengthening of the adjustment period as various quasi fixed factors become more easily variable therefore although waiting costs the firm more in terms of foregone profits it may save money on the cost of purchasing the new technology thus the firm must weigh the costs and benefits of delaying adoption as well as take account of its rival s strategic behavior

safe port in a storm the impact of labor market conditions on community college enrollments the paper examines the impact of the business cycle on enrollments and finances at individual community colleges between the late 1960s and the mid 1980s we find that 1 percent increases in the unemployment rates of recent high school graduates and of all adults are associated with rises in full time attendance of about 0 5 percent and 4 percent respectively part time enrollment exhibits similar anticyclical patterns this link carries over in large part to degrees obtained in contrast state and local appropriations per student are procyclical we interpret this funding pattern as a failure to integrate education policy sufficiently closely with labor market policy

where they go what they do and why it matters the importance of geographic accessibility and social class for decisions relating to higher education institution type degree level and field of study this article considers the impact of geographic accessibility and social class on school leavers when making decisions relating to higher education institution hei type degree level and field of study using a novel and comprehensive irish data set we consider a number of joint decisions facing school leavers in relation to where and what to study and employ a range of bivariate choice models which allows us to control for correlations in these decisions we find that geographic accessibility and social class play an important role in determining outcomes relating to hei type degree level and field of study we argue that these decisions are important in terms of future labour market and other outcomes for school leavers and that current policy in ireland does not go far enough in mitigating the impact of distance and socio economic barriers on these outcomes

networks and compatibility implications for antitrust in this paper we draw crucial parallels between the concepts of compatibility and networks and the more traditional concepts of complementarity and vertical relationships we also develop the important distinctions between two way networks and one way networks we then apply our framework to a number of current antitrust issues

preemption and rent equalization in the adoption of new technology we study the adoption of a new technology to illustrate the effects of preemption in games of timing we show that the threat of preemption equalizes rents in a duopoly but that this result does not extend to the general oligopoly game if the gain to preemption is sufficiently small then the optimal symmetric outcome which involves late adoption is an equilibrium this contrasts with reinganum s result that in precommitment equilibria there must be diffusion we develop a new and richer formalism for modeling games of timing which permits a continuoustime representation of the limit of discrete time mixed strategy equilibria

hardware quality vs network size in the home video game industry abstract this paper analyzes competition between multiple proprietary and incompatible hardware systems when indirect network effects are present and software is provided competitively by third party developers a discrete choice demand structure is employed within a game theoretic setting to allow for a continuum of market share possibilities empirical evidence supports the claim that excess inertia is not a pervasive problem two data sets covering the life of the home video game industry yearly from 1976 to 2003 and monthly january 1995 to october 2007 yield three main results 1 market share is 11 4 times more sensitive to hardware quality than network size 2 the number of available games is 3 69 times more sensitive to hardware quality than network size and 3 hardware quality has a larger impact than network size on the probability of hardware success

the contribution of associate s degree holders to u s earnings labor quality productivity and overall economic growth there is substantial evidence on the importance of education as a driver of earnings productivity and economic growth however knowledge of the specific role of associate s degrees in u s economic growth is limited we analyze the sources of u s economic growth and identify the contribution of associate s degree holders to improvements in earnings labor quality productivity and overall economic growth we find evidence that substitution toward workers with associate s degrees has increased u s earnings aggregate labor quality and productivity and that these effects are concentrated in the health care trade and government sectors while the average educational attainment of people entering the labor force has plateaued our results suggest that shifting workers from some college to associate degrees could improve earnings the quality of the workforce productivity and growth potentially without more time spent in school

adoption externalities as public goods abstract a public good problem arises naturally in situations characterized by positive externalities or negative externalities for positive externalities agents furnish a public good by taking an action similarly for negative externalities agents furnish a public good by not taking an action we examine these externalities in a binary choice problem i e adoption externalities in each case there is a potential role for government intervention even when equilibrium transfers are not allowed since one equilibrium pareto dominates all others we analyze the positive and normative features of equilibria in these models and we explore the possibility of useful government intervention

transmission congestion and competition on power generation expansion generation expansion planning involves decisions on location and capacity of new generation which may lead to adding or relieving congestion in transmission lines and to increasing or reducing competition in deregulated markets generation expansion may encounter congestion in the transmission network by constrained single line flows as well as flowgate transfer capabilities in this paper a model to study the interaction between competition and transmission congestion on power generation expansion is proposed the generation expansion problem is modeled as a cournot competition game network transmission constraints are included in the optimal generation expansion problem to comply with power flow limits results from a five bus power network and the ieee 24 bus system are presented and discussed

product compatibility as a signal of quality in a market with network externalities abstract in this paper i consider the compatibility decision as a signaling device of the quality of a newly introduced technology of which users are not informed provided that firms are located sufficiently far apart in hotelling s 0 1 interval i find separating equilibria where low compatibility signals high quality this possible separation is due to the fact that low compatibility is more advantageous to the high quality entrant than to the low quality entrant since it can prevent users of the established technology from enjoying network benefits from the new technology very much

systems competition and network effects this paper discusses firm behavior market performance and the public and private institutions that arise in systems markets i e markets where consumers use compatible components together to generate benefits in such markets which include communications networks and hardware software networks popular products are inherently more valuable these network effects can drive corporate strategies and are critical in understanding innovation in many high technology markets the discussion here emphasizes the dynamics of consumer adoption decisions in the presence of network effects competition between incompatible systems and how suppliers choose which components are compatible and which are not

the timing of product introduction and the credibility of compatibility decisions we analyze the compatibility choices of two firms which must also decide when to introduce their goods in a market characterized by network externalities we show that the firms incentives to achieve compatibility depend crucially on the time at which the degree of compatibility must be chosen this raises the possibility of time inconsistencies as a firm which initially favors compatibility might prefer incompatibility once one of the two goods has been introduced we also determine the socially optimal standardization policies both in a domestic and in an international context

homogenization and specialization effects of international trade are cultural goods exceptional summary in contrast to the logic that international trade leads to greater specialization and differentiation of products cultural industries are often still protected from imports in part because of the worry that trade will lead instead to homogenization is this true for cultural goods and if so is this different from other goods i consider the effects of homogenization on industrial development propose a network based method of identifying homogenization in global trade patterns and test a range of industries i find evidence of homogenization in many industries calling into question a major justification for free trade

the demand for and return to education when education outcomes are uncertain this article treats education as a sequential choice that is made under uncertainty a simple model is used to explore the effects of ability high school preparation preferences for schooling the borrowing rate and ex post payoffs to college on the probability of various post secondary college outcomes and the ex ante return to starting college the model motivates an empirical method of accounting for uncertainty about educational outcomes and for nonlinearity in the relationship between years of education and earnings when estimating the expected return to the first year of college

the varied economic returns to postsecondary education new evidence from the class of 1972 this paper estimates the returns to postsecondary education using the national longitudinal survey of the class of 1972 with earnings measured at about age 32 the results are based on transcripts rather than self reports about the amount of education allowing postsecondary education to be more precisely described than usual the results confirm the well known returns to b a degrees other credentials associate degrees and certificates for women also lead to higher earnings and wage rates though indirectly these credentials gain individuals access to jobs where they accumulate more experience and on the job training but provide no further advantage once experience and ojt are controlled most individuals who enroll in postsecondary education but fail to complete credentials have no higher earnings than high school graduates the effects of experience high school achievement and family background are familiar the results indicate a fundamental difference between labor markets for college graduates and the sub baccalaureate labor market

post secondary fees and the decision to attend a university or a community college abstract this paper examines the effect that post secondary fees have on a potential student s decision to start his or her college education at a university or a community college a theoretical model demonstrates that the student s decision follows a natural ordering that depends on his or her probability of graduation based on this natural ordering ordered probit is used to estimate the effect of interstate variation in fees on student attendance the results indicate that the own price effects of fee increases are negative while the cross price effects are positive

negative externalities competition and consumer choice consumers sometimes make choices that impose greater external costs on those who do not make the same choice this paper examines how the selectivity of negative externalities in such situations affects the competitive equilibrium and the desirability of an externality reducing public policy selective negative externalities create network externalities but outcomes may differ greatly from typical network effects price effects may cause the imposing product s sales to decline with the size of the negative externality consequently a positive competitive effect may overwhelm the externality s negative direct effects on welfare such that a policy that enlarges the externality may improve welfare