IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jindec/v55y2007i4p715-738.html

Bestseller Lists And Product Variety

Author

Listed:
  • ALAN T. SORENSEN

Abstract

This paper uses detailed weekly data on sales of hardcover fiction books to evaluate the impact of the New York Times bestseller list on sales and product variety. In order to circumvent the obvious problem of simultaneity of sales and bestseller status, the analysis exploits time lags and accidental omissions in the construction of the list. The empirical results indicate that appearing on the list leads to a modest increase in sales for the average book, and that the effect is more dramatic for bestsellers by debut authors. The paper discusses how the additional concentration of demand on top‐selling books could lead to a reduction in the privately optimal number of books to publish. However, the data suggest the opposite is true: the market expansion effect of bestseller lists appears to dominate any business stealing from non‐bestselling titles.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan T. Sorensen, 2007. "Bestseller Lists And Product Variety," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 715-738, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:55:y:2007:i:4:p:715-738
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6451.2007.00327.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6451.2007.00327.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-6451.2007.00327.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. Alexander, Peter J., 1997. "Product variety and market structure: A new measure and a simple test," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 207-214, February.
    2. Steven T. Berry & Joel Waldfogel, 2001. "Do Mergers Increase Product Variety? Evidence from Radio Broadcasting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 1009-1025.
    3. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    4. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    6. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    7. Lancaster, Kelvin, 1975. "Socially Optimal Product Differentiation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(4), pages 567-585, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sorensen, Alan T., 2004. "Bestseller Lists and Product Variety: The Case of Book Sales," Research Papers 1878, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    2. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107069978, January.
    3. Pier Paolo Saviotti & Andreas Pyka, 2009. "Product variety, competition and economic growth," Springer Books, in: Uwe Cantner & Jean-Luc Gaffard & Lionel Nesta (ed.), Schumpeterian Perspectives on Innovation, Competition and Growth, pages 71-95, Springer.
    4. A. Yeşim Orhun & Sriram Venkataraman & Pradeep K. Chintagunta, 2016. "Impact of Competition on Product Decisions: Movie Choices of Exhibitors," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 73-92, January.
    5. Rey, Patrick & Salant, David, 2012. "Abuse of dominance and licensing of intellectual property," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 518-527.
    6. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    7. Martin Cincibuch & Jiří Podpiera, 2006. "Beyond Balassa–Samuelson: Real appreciation in tradables in transition countries1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 14(3), pages 547-573, July.
    8. Melitz, Jacques, 2007. "The impact of English dominance on literature and welfare," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 193-215, October.
    9. Monteiro, Paulo Klinger & Moraga-González, José Luis, 2003. "We Sold a Million Units -- The Role of Advertising Past-Sales," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 57(2), April.
    10. Sergey Kokovin & Alina Ozhegova & Shamil Sharapudinov & Alexander Tarasov & Philip Ushchev, 2024. "A Theory of Monopolistic Competition with Horizontally Heterogeneous Consumers," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 354-384, May.
    11. Carol Corrado & Jonathan Haskel & Cecilia Jona-Lasinio & Massimiliano Iommi, 2022. "Intangible Capital and Modern Economies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 3-28, Summer.
    12. Maria Guadalupe, 2007. "Product Market Competition, Returns to Skill, and Wage Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(3), pages 439-474.
    13. Manitra A. Rakotoarisoa, 2023. "Fixed costs, market power and revenue shares of the asymmetric firms," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-34, March.
    14. J. Peter Neary, 2010. "Two and a Half Theories of Trade†," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 1-19, January.
    15. Andrea Ordanini, 2006. "Selection models in the music industry: How a prior independent experience may affect chart success," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 30(3), pages 183-200, December.
    16. Bart J. Bronnenberg & Jean-Pierre H. Dubé, 2016. "The Formation of Consumer Brand Preferences," NBER Working Papers 22691, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Alexis Dantec & Florence Levy, 2005. "Stars et box office : un état des approches théoriques et empiriques," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2005-13, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    18. Brekke Kjell Arne & Rege Mari, 2007. "Advertising as a Distortion of Social Learning," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-18, October.
    19. Hamilton, Stephen F., 2009. "Informative advertising in differentiated oligopoly markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 60-69, January.
    20. Qi Feng & J. George Shanthikumar & Mengying Xue, 2022. "Consumer Choice Models and Estimation: A Review and Extension," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(2), pages 847-867, February.

    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:jindec:v:55:y:2007:i:4:p:715-738. 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: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-1821 .

    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.