the market evolution and sales takeoff of product innovations in contrast to the prevailing supply side explanation that price decreases are the key driver of a sales takeoff we argue that outward shifting supplyand demand curves lead to market takeoff our fundamental idea is that sales in new markets are initially low because the first commercialized forms of new innovations are primitive then as new firms enter actual and perceived product quality improves and prices possibly drop which leads to a takeoff in sales to provide empirical evidence for this explanation we explore the relationship between takeoff times price decreases and firm entry for a sample of consumer and industrial product innovations commercialized in the united states over the past 150 years based on a proportional hazards analysis of takeoff times we find that new firm entry dominates other factors in explaining observed sales takeoff times we interpret these results as supporting the idea that demand shifts during the early evolution of a new market due to nonprice factors is the key driver of a sales takeoff

the welfare implications of trade liberalisation between the southern mediterranean and the eu the impact on the southern mediterranean countries smc of the current process of trade liberalization with the european union is explored the methodology is that of computable general equilibrium modelling under imperfect competition and the model includes ten countries and 11 sectors this allows for both a cross country and cross sectoral analysis of the results the experiments considered are the full liberalization of tariffs as well as changes in market access and trade induced changes in productivity a key feature of the paper is that the phased introduction of tariff reductions is allowed for as explicitly envisaged in the agreements the results show that the process of liberalization may have a substantial though non monotonic impact on the smc economies in terms of both changes in production and through this on welfare the welfare impact is potentially very high in particular for the high tariff economies the sources of the welfare gain tend to derive from perfectly competitive explanat

empirical calibration of adaptive learning abstract adaptive learning introduces persistence in the evolution of agents beliefs over time helping explain why economies present sluggish adjustments towards equilibrium the pace of this learning process is directly determined by the gain parameter we document and evaluate gain calibrations for a broad range of model specifications with macroeconomic data also developing alternative approaches to the endogenous determination of time varying gains in real time our key findings are that learning gains are higher for inflation than for output growth and interest rates and that calibrations to match survey forecasts are lower than those derived according to forecasting performance suggesting some degree of bounded rationality in the speed with which agents update their beliefs

the exchange rate and the balance of trade the turkish experience in this article we examine the responsiveness of turkey s trade balance to devaluation accompanied by trade liberalisation our results show that the trade balance was responsive to changes in the exchange rate that were brought about by the economic reforms introduced in the 1980s suggesting that exchange rate policy was able to create and maintain a satisfactory balance of trade position in the 1980s and early 1990s

demand heterogeneity and technology evolution implications for product and process innovation the evolution of technology has been a central issue in the strategy and organizations literature however the focus of much of this work has been on what is essentially the supply side of technical change the evolution of firm capabilities we present a demand based view of technology evolution that is focused on the interaction between technology development and the demand environment in which the technology is ultimately evaluated we develop a formal computer simulation model that explicitly considers the influence of heterogeneity in market demand the presence of consumers with different needs and requirements on firms innovation choices the model is used to examine the dynamics of product and process innovation utterback and abernathy 1975 the analysis reveals that demand heterogeneity offers an alternative to supply side explanations of the technology life cycle further by considering the implications of decreasing marginal utility from performance improvements the model highlights the role of technologically satisfied consumers in shaping innovation incentives and suggests a rationale for a new stage in the technology life cycle characterized by increasing performance at a stable price the stage has not yet been treated formally in the literature but is widely observed most prominently in digital and information based technologies

on turkey s trade policy is a customs union with europe enough abstract turkey has decided to harmonize its tarification structure with that of the european union for the country s authorities this move to a customs union is only meant to be the first step toward integration in the european union there are signs however that political opposition to the government s procompetitive stance may be strong enough to block any further move toward fuller trade liberalization we show using applied intertemporal ge analysis that to be welfare improving the trade reform would have to be pursued further and nontariff barriers on european trade removed failure to do so could be more detrimental to domestic welfare than no reform at all

trade reform in the partially liberalized economy of turkey recent reforms in trade policy in turkey have produced a foreign trade regime that exhibits very little antiexport bias on average a quantitative multisectoral general equilibrium model of the turkish economy shows that piecemeal trade policy reform based on first best rationales that are appropriate for highly distorted economies would not now be appropriate further tariff reductions must be coordinated with export subsidy reductions to attain significant welfare benefits the dispersion of distortions especially export subsidies is more important than their level a policy of harmonizing tariffs to the common external tariff of the european community has virtually no effect on welfare

technological extinctions of industrial firms an inquiry into their nature and causes after a buildup in the number of firms new industries commonly experience a shakeout in which the number of firms declines sharply three theoretical perspectives on how technological change contributes to industry shakeouts are analyzed the theories are used to synthesize predictions concerning technological change and industry evolution the predictions inform an analysis of four us industries that experienced sharp shakeouts automobiles tires televisions and penicillin using data on firm participation and innovation from the commercial inception of the four products through their formative eras we uncover regularities in how the products evolved the regularities suggest that shakeouts are not triggered by particular technological innovations nor by dominant designs but by an evolutionary process in which technological innovation contributes to a mounting dominance by some early entering firms copyright 1997 by oxford university press

will it ever fly modeling the takeoff of really new consumer durables a consistent pattern observed for really new household consumer durables is a takeoff or dramatic increase in sales early in their history the takeoff tends to appear as an elbow shaped discontinuity in the sales curve showing an average sales increase of over 400 in contrast most marketing textbooks as well as diffusion models generally depict the growth of new consumer durables as a smooth sales curve our discussions with managers indicate that they have little idea about the takeoff and its associated characteristics many managers did not even know that most successful new consumer durables had a distinct takeoff their sales forecasts tend to show linear growth yet knowledge about the takeoff is crucial for managers to decide whether to maintain increase or withdraw support of new products it is equally important for industry analysts who advise investors and manufacturers of complementary and substitute products although previous studies have urged researchers to examine the takeoff no research has addressed this critical event while diffusion models are commonly used to study new product sales growth they do not explicitly consider a new product s takeoff in sales indeed diffusion researchers frequently use data only from the point of takeoff therefore nothing is known about the takeoff or models appropriate for this event our study provides the first analysis of the takeoff in particular we address three key questions i how much time does a newly introduced product need to takeoff ii does the takeoff have any systematic patterns iii can we predict the takeoff we begin our study by developing an operational measure to determine when the takeoff occurs we found that when the base level of sales is small a relatively large percentage increase could occur without signaling the takeoff conversely when the base level of sales is large the takeoff sometimes occurs with a relatively small percentage increase in sales therefore we developed a threshold for takeoff this is a plot of percentage sales growth relative to a base level of sales common across all categories we define the takeoff as the first year in which an individual category s growth rate relative to base sales crosses this threshold the threshold measure correctly identifies the takeoff in over 90 of our categories we model the takeoff with a hazard model because of its advantages for analyzing time based events we consider three primary independent variables price year of introduction and market penetration as well as several control variables the hazard model fits the pattern of takeoffs very well with price and market penetration being strong correlates of takeoff our results provide potential generalizations about the time to takeoff and the price reduction nominal price and penetration at takeoff in particular we found that on average for 16 post world war ii categories the price at takeoff is 63 of the introductory price the time to takeoff from introduction is six years the penetration at takeoff is 1 7 the time to takeoff is decreasing for more recent categories for example the time to takeoff is 18 years for categories introduced before world war ii but only six years for those introduced after world war ii many of the products in our sample had a takeoff near three specific price points in nominal dollars 1000 500 and 100 in addition we show how the hazard model can be used to predict the takeoff the model predicts takeoff one year ahead with an expected average error of 1 2 years it predicts takeoff at a product s introduction with an expected average error of 1 9 years even against the simple mean time to takeoff of six years for recent categories the model s performance represents a tremendous improvement in prediction it represents an immeasurable improvement in prediction for managers who currently have no idea about how long it takes for a new product to takeoff the threshold rule for determining takeoff can be used to distinguish between a large increase in sales and a real takeoff some limitations of this study could provide fruitful areas for future research our independent variables suffer from endogeneity bias so alternative variables or methods could address this limitation also the takeoff may be related to additional variables such as relative advantage over substitutes and the presence of complementary products finally examination of sales from takeoff to their leveling off could be done with an integrated model of takeoff and sales growth or with the hazard model we propose generalizations about this period of sales growth could also be of tremendous importance to managers of new products

joint trade liberalization and tax reform in a small open economy the case of egypt abstract we develop a cge model of the egyptian economy to analyze the impact of various trade liberalization scenarios allowing distortionary domestic taxes to vary endogenously in order to satisfy a fixed real government revenue target we decompose computed welfare gains into effects from tax reform trade reform and their interaction scenarios include removal or unification of the consumption tax capital tax or both and tariff unification a free trade agreement with the european union and unilateral tariff elimination welfare effects depend critically on the type of revenue replacement tax while both are important neither trade policy reform nor tax reform dominates

a diffusion model incorporating product benefits price income and information we start by assuming that a major benefit of many new durable products such as dishwashers and microwave ovens is time savings others such as vcrs also enhance the value of our leisure time using a household production framework we demonstrate that a utility maximizing individual will have a reservation price for the product which is a function of the product benefits and his wage rate by assuming that the wage rate has an extreme value distribution across the population we are able to derive for the aggregate process an income price dependent logistic adoption equation we then allow for the possibility that certain eligible consumers may delay their purchase of the product because they are unaware that it exists are suspicious of its quality or expect its price to fall unawareness uncertainty and hope for further price declines are assumed to decrease with the increase in the number of previous adopters the resulting diffusion model has the property that the product life cycle phenomenon can be explained jointly or separately by the income price process and the awareness uncertainty expectations process using data on household income on durable penetration within different income classes and on first purchase sales the aggregate diffusion model and its premises are tested and supported it is found that both the income price and awareness uncertainty expectations processes are at work however the dependence of the awareness uncertainty expectations delay process on the number of previous adopters e g word of mouth type effect exists only in certain product categories and is usually relatively weak it is demonstrated that if the word of mouth type effects are weak a price skimming strategy is optimal for a monopolist and also is likely to be implemented by oligopolists the sales forecasting implications of the model also are pursued

innovation diffusion in the presence of supply restrictions innovation diffusion models are developed to represent the spread of a new product from its manufacturers to its ultimate users in the marketplace however the growth of a new product can be retarded by supply restrictions such as the unavailability of the product due to limitations on the production capacity or difficulties encountered in setting up distribution systems in the presence of supply restrictions diffusion models must be developed to capture the dynamics of supply restrictions and to allow management to evaluate the impact of such supply restrictions on the growth of a new product in the market place based on the bass innovation diffusion model the objective of this paper is to suggest a parsimonious diffusion model that integrates the demand side dynamics with the supply side restrictions the sensitivity of innovation diffusion patterns in the presence of supply restrictions is examined an application examining the diffusion of new telephones in israel is documented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed model

evolutionary trends of industry variables abstract the paper offers empirical evidence on the evolutionary trends of industry variables it investigates the time path of patents product price and quantity and number of firms from the first introduction of a product to maturity of the market the paper extends earlier work by gort and klepper by expanding the data on products through 1991 and augmenting it with new products and new data sources the reexamination of the aging patterns reveal the gort and klepper results to be robust the time trends follow the expected patterns with remarkable consistency and are strongly significant for most products new evidence on patenting activity reveal an eventual decline in technological activity over the later years of the product market life cycle

the making of an oligopoly firm survival and technological change in the evolution of the u s tire industry the number of producers in the u s tire industry grew for 25 years and then declined sharply and the industry evolved to be an oligopoly the role of technological change in shaping the industry s market structure is explored a model of industry evolution featuring technological change is used to derive predictions that are tested using a novel data set on firm entry exit size location distribution networks and technological choices prior to the shakeout of producers consistent with the model earlier entering and larger firms survived longer principally because of the influence of age and size on technological change

demand heterogeneity and technology evolution the evolution of technology has been a central issue in the strategy and organizations literature however the focus of much of this work has been on what is essentially the supply side of techn

on some properties of a trade closure widely used in numerical modelling abstract armington trade models with price taking behaviour and cet and ces functions may have perverse offer curves and nash equilibria in tariff games may not exist in the two country case

the evolution of new industries and the determinants of market structure several empirical regularities concerning firm growth rates and industry firm size distributions have been developed by studying primarily mature industries the primary purpose of this article is to bring together and extend empirical regularities on the evolution of new industries and to use these regularities to gain further insight into the forces governing industry evolution to explain these regularities a model is constructed which emphasizes how factors governing the early evolution of industries may shape their market structure at maturity it stresses how chance events and exogenous factors that influence the number of potential entrants to the industry the growth rate of incumbents and the ease of imitation of industry leaders will influence the ultimate number and size distribution of firms in the industry

empirical generalizations and marketing science a personal view marketing has matured to the point where it seems desirable to take stock of where we are what we have learned and fruitful directions for extending the knowledge base that has developed science is a process involving the interaction between empirical generalizations and theory an empirical generalization is a pattern or regularity that repeats over different circumstances and that can be described simply by mathematical graphic or symbolic methods one of the purposes of the empirical generalizations conference held at wharton on february 16 18 1994 was to develop a list of examples of such empirical generalizations in marketing empirical generalization can precede a theory to explain it or it can be predicted by a theory science is the process of interaction between theory and data that leads to higher level theories examples are provided here of empirical generalizations in marketing and their theoretical counterparts one example is provided of a higher level theory

welfare enhancing export subsidies this paper shows that export subsidies on marginal goods and those on nonmarginal goods have opposite welfare effects for the country imposing these subsidies where marginal goods are the ones that would be exported by only a small amount or not at all under free trade but whose export can be promoted considerably by export subsidies the former enhances the imposing country s welfare while the latter worsens it the paper also throws light on related issues such as industrial targeting policy

the life cycle of a competitive industry firm numbers first rise then later fall as an industry evolves this nonmonotonicity is explained using a competitive model in which innovation opportunities fuel entry and relative failure to innovate prompts exit equilibrium time paths for price and quantity also share features of the data the model is estimated using data from the u s automobile tire industry a particularly dramatic example of the nonmonotonicity in firm numbers

monopolist pricing with dynamic demand and production cost this paper deals with pricing of a new product over time by a monopolist who maximizes the discounted profit stream the interdependency of cost and demand on cumulative production makes the problem inherently dynamic cost is assumed to be declining with cumulative production learning curve effect while demand is a function of price and cumulative sales representing word of mouth and saturation effects the paper addresses this problem in a general framework that includes several previous results as special cases and provides new insights in other situations while the learning curve and word of mouth effect cause prices to be lower than the price that maximizes immediate revenues the saturation factor has the opposite effect the price path over time is affected by these factors and the interest rate we characterize the price path under several different situations and interpret the results for policy guidelines