Chaotic tatonnement

Summary Debreu's theorem on excess demand functions is used to demonstrate the possibilities of ergodic and topological chaos in a discrete-time tatonnement process with only two goods. The result is in sharp contrast with the well-known result of Arrow and Hurwicz on system stability in a continuous time model of price adjustment with two commodities.We would like to thank Professors Jess Benhabib, Richard Day, John Guckenheimer, Philip Holmes, Nicholas Kiefer and Tapan Mitra.     

A pitchfork bifurcation in the tatonnement process★

Summary . This note extends the example of Gale (1963) by considering the continuous time tatonnement process for a class of two agent, two commodity exchange economies, parametrized by a number μ∈(0,1). We demonstrate that as the parameter passes a threshold value μ^* the unique, globally stable competitive equilibrium loses local stability while two new locally stable equilibria appear. Intuitively, as μ increases the income effect become increasingly more important relative to substitution effect, and eventually overwhelms the latter. As the parameter μ approaches 1, the economy tends to the example considered by Gale, as does the limiting behavior of the tatonnement. Received: February 28, 1996; revised version August 5, 1996     

Network effects and competition: an empirical analysis of the home video game industry

Building on the resource‐based view of the firm, we advance the idea that a firm's customer network can be a strategic asset. We suggest that network effects are a function of network size (i.e., installed customer base) and network strength (i.e., the marginal impact of a unit increase in network size on demand). We empirically study these network effects in the 16‐bit home video game industry in which the dominant competitors were Nintendo and Sega. In the spirit of the new empirical IO framework, we estimate a structural econometric model assuming the data are equilibrium outcomes of the best fitting noncooperative game in price and advertising. After controlling for other effects, we find strong evidence that network effects are asymmetric between the competitors in the home video game industry. Specifically, we find that the firm with a smaller customer network (Nintendo) has higher network strength than the firm with the larger customer base (Sega). Thus, our results provide a possible explanation for this situation in which the firm with a smaller customer network (Nintendo) was able to overtake the sales of a firm with a larger network size (Sega). Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Customer value,satisfaction, loyalty,and switching costs: An illustration from a business-to-business service context

Although researchers and managers pay increasing attention to customer value, satisfaction, loyalty, and switching costs, not much is known about their interrelationships. Prior research has examined the relationships within subsets of these constructs, mainly in the business-to-consumer (B2C) environment. The authors extend prior research by developing a conceptual framework linking all of these constructs in a business-to-business (B2B) service setting. On the basis of the cognition-affect-behavior model, the authors hypothesize that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between customer value and customer loyalty, and that customer satisfaction and loyalty have significant reciprocal effects on each other. Furthermore, the potential interaction effect of satisfaction and switching costs, and the quadratic effect of satisfaction, on loyalty are explored. The authors test the hypotheses on data obtained from a courier service provider in a B2B context. The results support most of the hypotheses and, in particular, confirm the mediating role of customer satisfaction. Shun Yin Lam (asylam@ntu.edu.sg; fax: 65-6791-3697) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Lam received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario and has research interests in a number of areas including retail marketing, customer loyalty, and customers’ adoption and usage of technology. His work has appeared inMarketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, andAdvances in Consumer Research. Venkatesh (Venky) Shankar (vshankar@rhsmith.umd.edu) is Ralph J. Tyser Fellow and an associate professor of marketing in the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. His areas of research are e-business, competitive strategy, international marketing, pricing, new product management, and supply chain management. His research has been published or is forthcoming in theJournal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, andMarketing Letters. he is co-editor of theJournal of Interactive Marketing; associate editor ofManagement Science; and serves on the editorial boards ofMarketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, and theJournal of Academy of Marketing Science. He is a three-time winner of the Krowe Award for Outstanding Teaching and teaches Marketing Management, Digital Business Strategy, Competitive Marketing Strategy, and International Marketing (http://www.venkyshankar.com). M. Krishna Erramilli (amkerramilli@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has undertaken many studies on marketing strategy issues in service firms, particularly in an international context, and has published his work in journals like theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Business Studies, theColumbia Journal of World Business, and theJournal of Business Research. He has presented numerous papers at international conferences. His current research interests center on the international expansion of Asia-based service firms. Bvsan Murthy (abmurthy@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Prior to turning to the academe a decade ago, he had 20 years of international industry experience. He has published in journals likeThe Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly and theInternational Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and has also written industry white papers/monographs and chapters in books. His current research interests center on strategic services marketing/management and customer value management.     

Temporal product bundling with myopic and strategic consumers: Manifestations and relative effectiveness

Bundling in this era of eCommerce and high technology is a potent and widespread selling tool. The literature has focused on three static bundling strategies under which the products are sold separately (pure components or PC) or only in a bundled form (pure bundling or PB) or both (mixed bundling or MB). In a generalization, and motivated by real world examples, this paper examines the relative effectiveness of temporal bundling. We consider a firm that sells to a market of myopic and strategic consumers, and a selling season consisting of two stages. We compare four strategies – PC-PC (i.e., pure components in each of two stages), PB-PB, PB-PC and PC-PB – relative to MB. Our results show that PB-PB maximizes profits under low marginal costs; PC-PC prevails under high marginal costs given a large proportion of myopic consumers; and PB-PC is profit maximizing under moderate marginal costs when most consumers are strategic. These temporal strategies dominate MB except when the market is comprised entirely of strategic consumers. Finally, while temporal mixed bundling – MB-MB – is weakly superior to other temporal strategies, the latter are much easier to implement, as shown by real-world uses, and suffice to capture most of the profits. Related interesting pricing implications are discussed. Three extensions to the main model are also proposed.     

Inferring Market Structure from Customer Response to Competing and Complementary Products

We consider customer influences on market structure, arguing that market structure should explain the extent to which any given set of market offerings are substitutes or complements. We describe recent additions to the market structure analysis literature and identify promising directions for new research in market structure analysis. Impressive advances in data collection, statistical methodology and information technology provide unique opportunities for researchers to build market structure tools that can assist real-time marketing decision-making.     

Migrant farmworkers: Resisting and organising before,during and after COVID-19

Migrant farmworkers are a ubiquitous but invisibilised, expropriated and exploited component of the global agricultural economy. Their conditions took centre-stage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fear of production disruption in the migrant labour-intensive sectors led to foreign workers being deemed ‘essential’ in many countries, and exceptional procedures and regulations were instituted that further increased their exploitation, illnesses and deaths. However, the pandemic has not merely exposed the long-established structures of racialised exploitation and expropriation in the domain of farm work. Although it exacerbated the precariousness of the living and working conditions defining the reality of migrant farm workers, there is evidence that the pandemic also strengthened farmworkers' individual and collective consciousness, along with forms of organisation and resistance. The symposium ‘Migrant Farmworkers: Resisting and Organizing before, during and after COVID-19’ explores two dimensions reflected in migrant farmworkers' realities during the pandemic. First, the contributions look at the general conditions defining power structures and material outcomes within the political economy of agriculture before and during the pandemic. Second, they explore the conditions under which resistance and solidarity emerged to question established structures of exploitation.     

Managing the retail operations in the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Morocco

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and resulting lockdowns have contributed to major retail operational disturbances around the globe, forcing retail organizations to manage their operations effectively. The impact can be measured as a black swan event (BSE). Therefore, to understand its impact on retail operations and enhance operational performance, the study attempts to evaluate retail operations and develop a decision-making model for disruptive events in Morocco. The study develops a three-phase evaluation approach. The approach involves fuzzy logic (to measure the current performance of retail operations), graph theory (to develop an exit strategy for retail operations based on different scenarios), and ANN and random forest-based prediction model with K-cross validation (to predict customer retention for retail operations). This methodology is preferred to develop a unique decision-making model for BSE. From the analysis, the current retail performance index has been computed as “Average” level and the graph-theoretic approach highlighted the critical attributes of retail operations. Further, the study identified triggering attributes for customer retention using machine learning-based prediction models (MLBPM) and develops a contactless payment system for customers' safety and hygiene. The framework can be used on a periodic basis to help retail managers to improve their operational performance level for disruptive events.