The Determinants of New Product Diffusion : A Simultaneous Equation Approach

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of new product diffusion. We seek to document and explain systematic features of product diffusion. In this essay, we examine the well-documented empirical regularity that the speed of diffusion has accelerated during the twentieth century. The empirical results show that the main source of acceleration are faster declines in prices. Faster price declines make the product affordable to more consumers within a given period of time. Based on theories of intertemporal price discrimination and learning-by-doing, the association between the speed of adoption and the speed of price decline was explained. Faster price declines are attributed to several product characteristics as well as changes in income distribution. Above all, the introduction of consumer electronic products in more recent years can be regarded as the most important factor in accelerating price declines. Consumer electronic products are technologically different from non-electronic goods, in that semiconductors are important components. As the price of semiconductors has dropped rapidly, the falling production costs can be rapidly incorporated to the price of consumer electronic goods. Furthermore, most of the recently introduced consumer electronic products have network externalities, and many products with network externalities require complementary products. A complementary product becomes more readily or cheaply available as more people have the main product. One major difference between previous studies and this study is that the former focuses only on the factors that operate directly on the speed of adoption, while this study incorporated factors that work through price changes as well as the factors that work directly on the speed of adoption