应用经济学报告系列 (1112-3)

题目：Durable Good Innovation and Product Line Choice
报告人：冯泓（西南财经大学）
时间：2:00-3:30pm, September 27
地点：成人直播新楼217教室

Abstract:
This paper studies the optimal vertical product line decision of a monopolist who produces a perfectly durable good to vertically differentiated consumers, as exogenous innovations are adopted periodically. The paper provides an analytic framework to determine that when new models with higher qualities become available the firm will keep producing old models or not. Two demonstrating consumer type distributions are used to show two effects, named “alleviation for the future” and “pressure from the past”, which both lead the firm to produce old models and employ a multi-product line, but under different conditions and through opposite mechanisms. Moreover, when the first effect is strong, the second effect may stop working. Many examples from different industries resonate well with the theory.