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Most new consumer durable goods experience rapid prices declines and quality improvements, suggesting the importance of modeling dynamics. This paper specifies a dynamic model of consumer preferences for new durable goods with persistently heterogeneous consumer tastes, rational expectations, and repeat purchases over time. We estimate the model on the digital camcorder industry using panel data on prices, sales, and characteristics. We find that the 1-year elasticity in response to a transitory industrywide price shock is about 25 percent less than the 1-month elasticity. Standard cost-of-living indices overstate welfare gain in later periods due to a changing composition of buyers.

Although the aesthetic properties of a product have often been linked to consumers’ emotional responses, theory and empirical evidence are yet to fully explain how and why aesthetic properties of a product evoke an emotional response. Drawing on an eclectic literature, we propose hypotheses connecting aesthetic principles with the subconscious cognitive appraisals associated with emotions. Specifically, we empirically test the relationships between the aesthetic principle of harmony and cognitive appraisals (attentional activity and pleasantness), while exploring the moderating role of typicality. Our results suggest that harmony and typicality interact to affect appraisals of pleasantness and attentional activity. Specifically, consumers tend to prefer designs that balance the levels of attentional resources needed and pleasantness in visually evaluating the design. This work advances the growing literature in product design and aesthetics by providing an understanding of the mechanisms through which aesthetic principles might prompt emotional responses in consumers.

I study the effects of surveillance cameras on crime in the Stockholm subway system. Beginning in 2006, surveillance cameras were installed in subway stations at different points in time. Difference-in-difference analysis reveals that introduction of the cameras reduced crime by approximately 25% at stations in the city centre. The types of crimes deterred by cameras are planned crime, that is, pickpocketing and robbery. It is also shown that some of the crimes were displaced to surrounding areas. The cost of preventing one crime by the use of surveillance cameras is approximately US$ 2,000.

While the traditional marketing literature typically illustrates consumers as passive recipients of products and services, social media enables consumers to actively participate in cocreation during new product launch periods. Building on Tuten and Solomon's Zones of Social Media framework, the authors show how Twitter can be leveraged to create social community and social publishing opportunities. Using an exploratory study investigating the new product launches of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video game consoles, the authors show that shared language and personalized communication cultivated through these opportunities can enhance new product launch efforts by facilitating learning and knowledge cocreation.

The authors analyze a multimillion dollar, three-year field study sponsored by five firms to assess whether enabling skipping of advertisements using digital video recorders (DVRs) affects consumers' shopping behavior for advertised and private label goods. A large sample of households received an offer for a free DVR and service, and close to 20% accepted. Each household's shopping history is observed for 48 consumer packaged goods categories during the 13 months before and the 26 months after the DVR offer. The authors fail to reject the null hypothesis of no DVR treatment effect on household spending on advertised branded or private label goods, either one or two years after the DVRs are shipped. The predicted DVR effect is tightly centered around 0, suggesting that the data have sufficient power to identify a true null effect. Using advertising exposure information for seven of the brands in the study, the authors offer suggestive evidence that ad skipping occurs for a relatively small fraction of the total television content viewed. The authors also discuss other potential explanations for the lack of a DVR effect.

How do surveillance cameras affect unruly spectator behavior? I examine this question using a natural experiment from the Swedish soccer league. Stadiums in Sweden introduced surveillance cameras at different points in time during the years 2000 and 2001. I exploit the exogenous variation that occurred because of differences across stadiums in the processing time taken to obtain permits for cameras as well as delays in the supply of equipment. Conditioning on stadium fixed effects, unruly behavior was found to be approximately 65 percent lower in stadiums with cameras compared to stadiums without cameras. The identification strategy provides a unique possibility to address problems regarding endogeneity, simultaneous policy interventions, and displacement effects.

Purpose - This review aims to examine how photography and video have been used in a variety of fields.Design methodology approach - The paper examines how these visual methods have and can be used in marketing.Findings - Photography and video have important strengths. They help us overcome the typically fleeting nature of observation. They also allow us to record behavior in its situational context, allow for reflection, informants, coding, and use of the behavior or situation for illustration. In addition to their analysis of behavior, visual methods can also be used for the purpose of analysis of environments. Photographs and videos can also reveal insights into the interpretive side of the equation - examining people's focus and interpretation of their behaviors and rituals. This visual information can be qualitative - aiming for naturalistic, descriptive, and \"rich\" data; they can also be used to quantitatively measure circumstances and events.Originality value - Understanding the potential uses of photography and video in observational research as well as their strengths and weaknesses will allow us to gain the most value from their application.

Purpose - The paper aims to contribute to the wider adoption of simulation games in marketing teaching. The purposes of the research reported here are to understand marketing students' perceptions of the learning achieved from the use of simulation games, and marketing lecturers' perceptions of the barriers to increased use of simulation games.Design methodology approach - A structured questionnaire was administered to 137 final-year marketing undergraduates studying at two British universities and eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with marketing lecturers currently using simulation games in their marketing teaching.Findings - Students perceive the simulation game to be a highly effective learning method, delivering valuable knowledge and skills. In addition, students find the game to be an enjoyable learning approach. Lecturers are enthusiastic about this learning method, but note some barriers to adoption; particularly cost, the steep learning curve, and the difficulty of finding unbiased advice about suitable games to deliver desired learning outcomes.Research limitations implications - Limitations are that the empirical base for the quantitative study was only two universities in the UK, and the questionnaire concerned only student perceptions of their learning, not an objective assessment of actual learning. It is recommended that the study be extended to a wider sample of universities, and that the approach be widened to include an assessment of the measurable learning outcomes achieved rather than just student perceptions.Originality value - The degree of student enthusiasm for simulation games is striking. Lecturers also find the method very engaging, but acknowledge that there are important barriers to more widespread simulation game adoption.

We develop a dynamic structural model of consumers' choices and producers' pricing in an oligopolistic market for newly introduced durable products with network externalities. The model is then applied to empirically analyze the de facto standardization of the VHS format in the U.S. home VCR market during 1981-1988. We find: (i) the network advantage of VHS explains at least 70.3% to 86.8% of (the logarithm of) relative sales of VHS to Betamax in each year; (ii) an increase in the network advantage of VHS was an engine of tipping toward the VHS format; and (iii) in the early 1980s, the network advantage of VHS was mainly due to its expected growth advantage.

With increasing fragmentation of media markets and recent advances in technology, loss of advertising effectiveness has been a great concern for marketers. For consumers, the digital video recorder (DVR) offers the possibility to fast-forward through live programming. Whereas the DVR thus benefits consumers by reducing nuisance from commercials, industry observers believe that it may diminish advertisers' profits by rendering commercials ineffective. We use a model of informative advertising to study the effect of DVR penetration on competing advertisers' strategies and profits. We find that the overall effect of DVRs depends on the trade off between loss of advertising effectiveness and reduction in competition between firms. The latter effect arises because DVR penetration may increase the ratio of partially informed to fully informed consumers. We identify conditions under which an increase in DVR penetration counterintuitively leads firms to increase advertising levels and enjoy higher profits. Interestingly, we find that greater DVR penetration is beneficial for firms when the share of DVR owners in the population is above-rather than below-a threshold level. We also study the impact of different fast-forwarding (\"zipping\") behaviors on product market competition.