NBER Publications by Marc Rysman

This paper specifies and estimates a dynamic model of consumer preferences for new durable goods with persistent heterogeneous consumer tastes, rational expectations about future products and repeat purchases over time. Most new consumer durable goods, particularly consumer electronics, are characterized by relatively high initial prices followed by rapid declines in prices and improvements in quality. The evolving nature of product attributes suggests the importance of modeling dynamics in estimating consumer preferences. We estimate the model on the digital camcorder industry using a panel data set on prices, sales and characteristics. We find that dynamics are a very important determinant of consumer preferences and that estimated coefficients are more plausible than with traditional s...

56K modems were introduced under two competing incompatible standards. We show the importance of competition between Internet Service Providers in the adoption process. We show that ISPs were less likely to adopt the technology that more competitors adopted. This result is particularly striking given that industry participants expected coordination on one standard or the other. We speculate about the role of ISP differentiation in preventing the market form achieving standardization until a government organization intervened.