Early‐Stage of Innovations: Selection System Criteria for Funding U.S. Biotech SMEs

The focus of this paper is small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the U.S. biotechnology industry and how they compete for financial resources during the early stages of innovation development. We utilize selection system theory, which describes how selectors use reputation‐based information about selectees as decision factors when making investments. Our findings suggest that there are different predictive variables for SME categories and the types of investors attracted to these categories, which is consistent with selection system theory. We extend prior studies by providing context to early‐stage innovation investment funding within an environment characterized as having a long development cycle and representing high uncertainty.     

The role of exports in India's economic growth

We analyze the role of exports in India's economic growth and examine whether the export-led growth hypothesis (ELGH) applies to India. Our causality analysis provides support for the validity of the ELGH for India in the trade liberalization phase. Error variance decomposition and other analyses are also undertaken; these corroborate the results of the causality analysis and suggest that the rapid growth of exports has played a substantial role in increasing the growth rate in India following the economic reforms of 1991.     

An Experimental Study of Cognitive Dissonance,Product Involvement,Expectations, Performance and Consumer Judgement of Product Performance

Abstract

This experimental study investigates the effects of cognitive dissonance, expectations, and product performance on product evaluations. The study improves upon the methodological problems of the past experimental studies. The results of a 2×2×2 factorial design suggest that product involvement acts as a moderator in the postdecisional product evaluation process. The theoretical and empirical findings suggest communication guidelines for the advertisers.     

Comments on “Counterfactual Inference for Consumer Choice Across Many Product Categories”

Quantitative Marketing and Economics -     

The role of self selection, usage uncertainty and learning in the demand for local telephone service

Telephone services are often characterized by the presence of ‘fixed’ plans, involving only a fixed monthly fee, as well as ‘measured’ plans, with both fixed fees and per-unit charges for usage. Consumers are faced with the decisions of which plan to choose and how much to use the phone and these decisions are not, in general, independent. Due to the presence of a time lag between plan choice and usage decisions, consumers are uncertain about usage at the plan-choice stage. We develop a structural discrete/continuous model of plan choice and usage decisions of consumers that accounts for such uncertainty. Prior research has also found that consumers switch less often from fixed plans to measured plans to gain from potential savings than vice versa. Consumer uncertainty regarding their mean usage levels and different rates of learning by consumers in the two plans is a potential explanation for this phenomenon. We extend our discrete/continuous model to account for consumer learning about their mean usage and estimate different rates of learning for the two types of plans. We estimate our model using data from the 1986 Kentucky local telephone tariff experiment. Even in the absence of any price variation over time, we are able to measure the price elasticities both of usage and of choice of plan. Using our parameter estimates, we simulate the effects of the introduction of a metered plan in a market with only a fixed plan and vice versa, on both firm revenues and consumer surplus. We also find that consumers learn very rapidly if they are on the measured plan but learn very slowly when they are on the fixed plan. We investigate an alternative assumption on the nature of the learning process in which only consumers in the measured plan have an opportunity to learn. We find that our empirical results are robust to this change of specification. We conduct counterfactual simulations to simulate enhanced calling plans from the firm and consumer points of view. Additional simulations to measure the value of information in this category are also carried out. We compute the value of both complete information, where the entire uncertainty about future usage is resolved, as well as that of limited information, where the consumer's uncertainty about mean usage is resolved, but the uncertainty about specific month-to-month usage remains. We find that the value of information is modest. We also find that a large proportion of the value of information is that about the mean usage, with the value of the information about a specific month's usage being relatively small.