Product Durability and Market Structure: Some Evidence
研究了不同市场结构（垄断、竞争）下产品耐用性的差异，比较了传统观点与修正观点，发现不同假设下竞争或垄断都可能减少耐用性。
CHANGES in product durability disturb existing supply and demand relationships. Whether they occur ultimately depends on expected profits and, therefore, on the degree of competition among sellers. In competitive markets the firm is constrained by the actions of other producers. Being slow to introduce an innovation may force it to leave the industry as consumers turn to the improved products of competitors. Will the monopolist, who faces no such immediate constraints, produce a different quality of product from that which would emerge from competitive markets? Specifically, will product durability be different under alternative industry structures? If so, will monopoly, competition, or some monopolistically competitive structure produce the 'better' product? The 'conventional' view, associated most closely with the work of Martin [28], Kleiman and Ophir [22], Levhari and Srinivasan [24] and Schmalensee [45], asserts that monopolistic firms are likely to shorten product life from that obtainable under competition. The counter or 'revisionist' position, argued most convincingly by Swan [48, 49], states that monopolistic firms will not reduce product durability but instead will extract the monopoly toll by charging higher prices for fewer units of the optimum, competitive durability. Although Swan's 'revisionist' formulation successfully overturned the 'conventional' view, given the latter's assumptions, the assumptions themselves have become central to the continuing debate. In short, under various assumptions both competition and monopoly have been singled out as providing the most congenial environment for reductions in durability.1