Thesis (doctoral)--Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, 2005. / "CHER C publication series"--T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references (p. 268-280).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1983. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-76).

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The notion of complementarity is fundamental to economics, as reflected in the large and growing number of studies that invoke alternate conceptions of this idea. Though complementarity has been studied for many years, its connection with theory of supermodularity is far more recent. Taking advantage of these techniques, the first three chapters of this dissertation study aspects of interest in network markets; endogenous information acquisition; and some insights into the comparison of player's equilibrium strategies. The last chapter applies this methodology to econometric identification.Chapter one provides a thorough analysis of oligopolistic markets with positive demand-side network externalities and perfect compatibility. With a general complementarity structure on the model primitives allowing for products with low or high stand-alone values, a nontrivial fulfilled-expectations equilibrium exists. We formalize the concept of industry viability, investigate its determinants, and show that viability is always enhanced by having more firms in the market and/or by technological progress.The second chapter studies covert information acquisition in common value Bayesian games of strategic complementarities. Using the supermodular stochastic order to arrange the structures of information increasingly in terms of preferences, we provide novel, easily interpretable conditions under which the value of information is globally convex, and study the implications in terms of the equilibrium configuration. Our analysis also enlightens the effect of information on players' behavior.Chapter three proposes a simple approach to compare players' equilibrium choices in asymmetric games with strategic complementarities. We offer three applications of our idea to industrial organization and behavioral economics.The last chapter studies (nonparametric) partial identification of treatment response with social interactions. It imposes economically driven monotone conditions to the primitives of the model, i.e., the structural equations, and shows that they imply shape restrictions on the distribution of potential outcomes by means of monotone comparative statics. We propose precise conditions that validate counterfactual predictions in models with multiple equilibria. Under three sets of assumptions, we identify sharp distributional bounds (in terms of stochastic dominance) on the potential outcomes given observable data. We illustrate our results by studying the effect of police per-capita on crime rates in New York state.

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M.Com. (Business Economics) / Proper pricing should be done in three phases. Firstly, the determination of the market-price, namely that price which the consumers are prepared to pay for the amount of need-satisfaction they perceived from using the product. Secondly, the determination of the target-price, namely that price wrich will give a satisfactory rate of return on investment for the firm. Thirdly, the determination of the final price, by comparing the market-price with the target-price. The determination of the market-price is becoming more and more relevant and up to the present time no comprehensive research has been done on this subject in South Africa. In this dissertation an investigation was undertaken into the present technology concerning market-pricing and from this knowledge a method was developed which will be applicable to the determination of market prices in South Africa.

New technologies have given rise to digital versions of many goods including photographs, books, music, and movies. This dissertation examined whether people ascribe greater value to physical or digital goods with self-report and incentive compatible designs. I report ten experiments that elucidate the preference and identify greater establishment of psychological ownership for physical goods as the mechanism responsible for their greater valuation. I found that participants ascribed a higher value to physical versions of a variety of goods, whether measured in an incentive compatible pay-what-you-want paradigm, willingness to pay, or purchase intention. In Experiment 1, tourists paid more for a printed photograph of themselves with a costumed historical figure at a historical site than a similar digital photograph, even when controlling for the perceived cost of production. Experiment 2 found that this difference in valuation generalizes to other product categories such as books, music, movies, and magazine subscriptions. Experiment 3 suggested that the differences were not due to perceived consumption utility. Although participants ascribed greater value to physical goods, they believed their digital counterparts were more useful on every dimension measured. Experiment 4 ruled out a social signaling motive, as participants exhibited the same greater preference for physical versions of both high and lowbrow goods. Experiment 4 also found that estimates of the retail prices of digital and physical goods does not explain this preference. Experiment 5 identified psychological ownership as a driver of the higher valuation ascribed to physical goods. Psychological ownership and not assessments of permanence or anticipated consumption enjoyment mediated the effect of product format on willingness to pay (WTP). Experiments 6A and 6B provided further evidence for the ownership account. College students reported their WTP for buying or renting a digital or print copy of a course textbook. The WTP gap between physical and digital versions of the textbook was considerably greater in the purchase condition than rent condition. Whereas students were WTP more to buy than rent a physical textbook, they were not WTP more to buy than rent the same digital textbook. The rest of the studies further explored the ownership account and its implications. / 2018-06-22T00:00:00Z

This study offers an in-depth account of how, when and why consumers engage with films as brands, using 38 exploratory, semi-structured consumer interviews and 1030 consumer survey responses. Extant film branding literature is scarce, dominated by filmmakers' and marketers' perspectives of films as brands and is confined to exploring points of parity associations films have as brands, rather than ways films may differentiate themselves as brands. Taking on a consumer centric view, our findings show although filmmakers, production houses and marketers may jointly develop and market films with the vision of becoming brands, this doesn't necessarily guarantee consumers' engagement with such films as brands. Instead, consumers initially evaluate the coherency of a film's identity and subsequently go on to engage with films as brands, a process which is fully mediated by the emotional bonding a consumer may develop for a film and partially mediated by a film's popularity and sequels. Films' marketing/franchising efforts, iconic status and sense of timelessness moderate consumer-film brand engagement, resulting in positive word of mouth and purchase intention. Our sequential, consolidated and specified film brand engagement framework guides filmmakers and marketers on how to tactically engage consumers with their films as brands, in order to differentiate themselves within this risky and competitive market.