IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v10y1972i2p123-138.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Some Economic Consequences Of Anticipating Technical Advance

Author

Listed:
  • MORTON I. KAMIEN
  • NANCY L. SCHWARTZ

Abstract

Using a simple model of a long run profit maximizing firm, we investigated the consequences of foreseeing future technical advance upon the adoption of new technology, scrapping of old, and for price and output of the firm's product. To simplify the analysis and highlight the conclusions, we assumed all technologies embodied in equipment and all equipment infinitely durable. It was shown that the often‐used formulas for the unit cost of using capital over a finite (rkj/(l — aT)) or infinite (rkj) life are appropriate only if the equipment does not become outmoded during its economic life and if there are no demand shifts in that time interval. Otherwise, the current cost of using capital (ex ante) must reflect future lesser or greater earning power of that capital due to outmodedness or demand shifts. Anticipation of technical advance tends to delay scrapping of old equipment and retard installation of new, with current output smaller and price higher than if technology is stagnant. Selection among currently competing technologies is also affected by the course future technical advance is expected to follow. The economic lifetime of capital equipment is independent of the elasticity of demand for the firm's output. On the other hand anticipation of demand expansion tends to partially or wholly offset the effect of anticipating future technical advance, while expected demand decline tends to reinforce it. Uncertainty about when improved technology will appear tends to retard adoption of current best practice technology, to retard scrapping of outmoded technology, restrict output and elevate price, in comparison with pptimal policy when the time of availability is believed known. The optimal policy is unaffected when it is the magnitude of the improvement rather than its timing which is unknown.

Suggested Citation

  • Morton I. Kamien & Nancy L. Schwartz, 1972. "Some Economic Consequences Of Anticipating Technical Advance," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 10(2), pages 123-138, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:10:y:1972:i:2:p:123-138
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7295.1972.tb01594.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1972.tb01594.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1972.tb01594.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kamien, Morton I & Schwartz, Nancy L, 1971. "Limit Pricing and Uncertain Entry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(3), pages 441-454, May.
    2. Koizumi, Susumu, 1969. "Technical Progress and Investment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 10(1), pages 68-81, February.
    3. Kamien, Morton I & Schwartz, Nancy L, 1970. "Market Structure, Elasticity of Demand and Incentive to Invent," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 241-252, April.
    4. Hirohide Hinomoto, 1965. "Capacity Expansion with Facilities Under Technological Improvement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(5), pages 581-592, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Just, Richard E. & Netanyahu, Sinaia & Olson, Lars J., 2005. "Depletion of natural resources, technological uncertainty, and the adoption of technological substitutes," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 91-108, June.
    2. Spiro E. Stefanou, 1987. "Technical Change, Uncertainty, and Investment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 69(1), pages 158-165.
    3. Gezer, Serhat, 2019. "Delaying product introduction: A dynamic analysis with endogenous time horizon," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 96-114.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Flavio Toxvaerd, 2017. "Dynamic limit pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(1), pages 281-306, March.
    2. Cumbul, Eray & Virág, Gábor, 2018. "Multilateral limit pricing in price-setting games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 250-273.
    3. Cosimano, Thomas F. & McDonald, Bill, 1998. "What's different among banks?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 57-70, February.
    4. Xavier Vives, 2008. "Innovation And Competitive Pressure," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 419-469, December.
    5. Tamotsu Nakamura, 2002. "'The Principle of Increasing Risk': Kalecki's investment theory revisited," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 115-123.
    6. C. S. Kim & Glenn D. Schaible & Jan Lewandrowski & Utpal Vasavada, 2010. "Managing Invasive Species in the Presence of Endogenous Technological Change with Uncertainty," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 250-260, February.
    7. Nelson, Richard R. & Wolff, Edward N., 1997. "Factors behind cross-industry differences in technical progress," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 205-220, June.
    8. Yaniv, Gideon, 2002. "Non-adherence to a low-fat diet: an economic perspective," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 93-104, May.
    9. José M. Labeaga & Ester Martínez Ros, "undated". "Persistence and ability in the innovation decisions," Working Papers 2005-16, FEDEA.
    10. Price, Gregory N., 1995. "The determinants of entry for black-owned commercial banks," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 289-303.
    11. Milde, Hellmuth, 1980. "Potentielle Konkurrenz, Marktzutritt und Limitpreisbildung," Discussion Papers, Series I 150, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    12. Mesak, Hani I. & Zhang, Hongkai & Pullis, Joe M., 2010. "On optimal service capacity allocation policy in an advance selling environment in continuous time," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 203(2), pages 505-512, June.
    13. Richa Shukla & Surajit Bhattacharyya & K. Narayanan, 2016. "Firm Size vis-Ã -vis Industry Size and Innovation in a Dominant Firm-fringes Oligopoly Model," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 51(1), pages 13-25, February.
    14. Harabi, Najib, 1994. "Technischer Fortschritt in der Schweiz: Empirische Ergebnisse aus industrieökonomischer Sicht [Technischer Fortschritt in der Schweiz:Empirische Ergebnisse aus industrieökonomischer Sicht]," MPRA Paper 6725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1982. "Limit Pricing and Entry under Incomplete Information: An Equilibrium Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 443-459, March.
    16. Richard A. Jensen, 1980. "A Duopoly Model of the Adoption of an Innovation of Uncertainty Profitability," Discussion Papers 434, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    17. Rachel Ngai & Roberto Samaniego, 2011. "Accounting for Research and Productivity Growth Across Industries," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(3), pages 475-495, July.
    18. Christopher Gedge & James W. Roberts & Andrew Sweeting, 2014. "A Model of Dynamic Limit Pricing with an Application to the Airline Industry," NBER Working Papers 20293, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Ester Martínez Ros & Vicente Salas Fumás, "undated". "The effect of innovation activity on innovating quasi-rents: an empirical application," Studies on the Spanish Economy 03, FEDEA.
    20. Kofi O. Nti & Martin Shubik, 1981. "Duopoly with Differentiated Products and Entry Barriers," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 576, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:10:y:1972:i:2:p:123-138. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.