IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ecinnt/v16y2007i8p587-594.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effects Of Technological Change On The Quality And Variety Of Information Products

Author

Listed:
  • David Waterman

Abstract

Anecdotal evidence suggests that producers of information products (TV programs, movies, computer software) may respond to potentially cost-saving technological change by increasing, rather than reducing, their total production investments in the 'first copy' of each product, possibly at the expense of product variety. Comparative statics show that under reasonable assumptions about consumer demand and production technology, competitive firms in a monopolistically competitive industry are in fact induced to increase first-copy investments as a result of either what we define as 'quality-enhancing' or 'cost-reducing' types of technological advance, whereas product variety either falls or stays the same. Results suggest that contrary to often held expectations, potentially cost-saving technological advances in information industries may result in greater market concentration.

Suggested Citation

  • David Waterman, 2007. "The Effects Of Technological Change On The Quality And Variety Of Information Products," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(8), pages 587-594.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ecinnt:v:16:y:2007:i:8:p:587-594
    DOI: 10.1080/10438590600925144
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10438590600925144
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10438590600925144?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Sutton, 2001. "Technology and Market Structure: Theory and History," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262692643, December.
    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. Carsten Eckel & Florian Unger, 2023. "Credit Constraints, Endogenous Innovations, And Price Setting In International Trade," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1715-1747, November.
    2. Varela, Mauricio J., 2018. "The costs of growth: Accelerated growth and crowd-out in the Mexican supermarket industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-52.
    3. Lyons, Andrew Charles & Um, Juneho & Sharifi, Hossein, 2020. "Product variety, customisation and business process performance: A mixed-methods approach to understanding their relationships," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    4. Livat, Florine & Remaud, Hervé, 2016. "Factors Impacting Wine Price Mark-Ups in Restaurants," Working Papers 234639, American Association of Wine Economists.
    5. Crinò, Rosario & Ogliari, Laura, 2015. "Financial Frictions, Product Quality, and International Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 10555, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. J. Paul Dunne & María D.C. García-Alonso & Paul Levine & Ron P. Smith, 2006. "Managing asymmetric conflict," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 183-208, April.
    7. Jing-Yuan Chio & Laura Magazzini & Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni, 2012. "The Value of Failures in Pharmaceutical R&D," Working Papers 1/2012, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, revised Jan 2012.
    8. Krishna, Pravin & Levchenko, Andrei A. & Ma, Lin & Maloney, William F., 2023. "Growth and risk: A view from international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    9. Esmée Dijk & José Luis Moraga-González & Evgenia Motchenkova, 2023. "Start-up Acquisitions and the Entrant’s and Incumbent’s Innovation Portfolios," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-047/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Valerie Smeets & Sharon Traiberman & Frederic Warzynski, 2013. "Offshoring and Patterns of Quality Growth: Evidence from Danish Apparel," Economics Working Papers 2013-25, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    11. Piveteau, Paul & Smagghue, Gabriel, 2019. "Estimating firm product quality using trade data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 217-232.
    12. Unni Pillai, 2013. "A Model of Technological Progress in the Microprocessor Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 877-912, December.
    13. Greer, Katja, 2013. "Limiting rival's efficiency via conditional discounts," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79730, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Rosario Crinò & Laura Ogliari, 2014. "Financial Frictions, Product Quality, and International Trade," Working Papers wp2014_1403, CEMFI.
    15. An-Hsiang Liu & Ralph Siebert & Christine Zulehner, 2013. "The Impact of Entry Regulation on Total Welfare: A Policy Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 4291, CESifo.
    16. Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni & Alessandro Spelta, 2021. "The network origins of Schumpeterian innovation," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(5), pages 1411-1431, November.
    17. Tamminen, Saara & Chang, Han-Hsin, 2012. "Company heterogeneity and mark-up variability," Working Papers 32, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Katja Greer, 2013. "Limiting rival's efficiency via conditional discounts," Working Papers 132, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    19. Kwon, Spencer Y. & Ma, Yueran & Zimmermann, Kaspar, 2022. "100 years of rising corporate concentration," SAFE Working Paper Series 359, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    20. Andrea Ciani & Francesca Bartoli, 2020. "Export quality differentiation under credit constraints," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 1398-1433, May.

    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:taf:ecinnt:v:16:y:2007:i:8:p:587-594. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GEIN20 .

    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.