The evolution of market leadership over the lifecycle of a product generation.

摘要

This dissertation analyzes the evolution of market leadership as a product generation is introduced and matures. The first chapter introduces a racing model with multiple product generations, product innovation, spin-outs, and licensing. Industry conditions and innovation characteristics affect who wins the race and who markets the resulting product. Small firms market their innovations when they pioneer a new generation or improve quality in a young generation and license their innovations in mature generations. If old generation leaders ever market improvements in young generation goods, they do so early on. Leadership in mature generations persists. Tests on the rigid disk drive industry (1977--97) provide empirical support. The results have implications for antitrust policies and policies governing employee non-compete agreements.; The second chapter develops quality-adjusted price indexes for U.S. home video game consoles over the lifetime of the industry (1976--2003). Results are used to build a quality parameter for video game consoles. This quality parameter is necessary for the analysis in the third chapter. As well as being useful for creating a quality measure, the price index fills a void left by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS has not developed a sufficient price index despite the growing importance of the video game industry to the U.S. economy. The indexes developed in this section are adjusted for quality changes following a recent BLS trend in other industries.; The final chapter develops a game theoretic model to analyze indirect network effects characterized by the hardware/software relationship. Implications are obtained for the evolution of market leadership over the product lifecycle in such an industry. Analytical and computational results suggest monopoly outcomes are not guaranteed. Situations arise where multiple standards can persist. The tipping effect associated with network economies may not occur when hardware firms charge licensing fees to software firms that develop titles for their system. A higher quality hardware system is rarely dominated by a lower quality system with a larger installed base of consumers. Econometric tests on an original data set provide empirical support. Results suggest that monopolies due to network effects need not prompt government intervention.