Technology Timing and Pricing In the Presence of an Installed Base

This paper studies a vendor.s timing and pricing strategies to tackle its own installed base when selling a newly improved product. We characterize the market with either a partly- or fully- covered installed base, consumers. relative willingness to pay for the newly improved version of the product, and their relative payoffs from delayed purchase. Instead of using the conventional assumption of constant consumer reservation price, we propose that if consumers already own an existing (old) version of a durable product, their willingness to purchase the newly improved version would increase over time. This effect, interweaving with consumer heterogeneity on valuation of quality and purchase history, may enable perfect intertemporal price discrimination (Salant 1989). We find that upgrade pricing may not be able to differentiate consumers with different purchase history when consumer heterogeneity is sufficiently high. Instead, the vendor would maximize its profit through intertemporal price discrimination, delayed product introduction, or pooling pricing. By overcoming the intractability of studying delayed product introduction in a market with heterogeneous consumers, this study analytically confirms Fishman and Rob.s conjecture (2000) that heterogeneity in consumers. valuation of quality may discourage a vendor to launch a new product. Particularly, consumers. anticipation of future price reduction can lead to delayed product introduction even when the extent of quality improvement embodied in the new product is high.New product introduction, intertemporal price discrimination, delayed product introduction, installed base, upgrade policy

Revisit to Non-decoupling MSSM

Dipole operator $\bar{s}\sigma_{\mu\nu}F^{\mu\nu}b$ requires the helicity flip in the involving quark states thus the breaking of chiral $U(3)_{Q}\times U(3)_{d}$. On the other hand, the $b$-quark mass generation is also a consequence of chiral $U(3)_{Q}\times U(3)_{d}$ symmetry breaking. Therefore, in many models, there might be strong correlation between the $b\to s\gamma$ and $b$ quark Yukawa coupling. We use non-decoupling MSSM model to illustrate this feature. The light Higgs boson may evade the direct search experiments at LEPII or Tevatron while the 125 GeV Higgs-like boson is identified as the heavy Higgs boson in the spectrum. A light charged Higgs is close to the heavy Higgs boson which is of 125 GeV and its contribution to $b\to s \gamma$ requires large supersymmetric correction with large PQ and $R$ symmetry breaking. The large supersymmetric contribution at the same time significantly modifies the $b$ quark Yukawa co upling. With combined flavor constraints $B\to X_{s}\gamma$ and $B_{s}\to \mu^{+}\mu^{-}$ and direct constraints on Higgs properties, we find best fit scenarios with light stop of $\cal O$(500 GeV), negative $A_{t}$ around -750 GeV and large $\mu$-term of 2-3 TeV. In addition, reduction in $b\bar{b}$ partial width may also result in large enhancement of $\tau\tau$ decay branching fraction. Large parameter region in the survival space under all bounds may be further constrained by $H\to \tau\tau$ if no excess of $\tau\tau$ is confirmed at LHC. We only identify a small parameter region with significant $H\to hh$ decay that is consistent with all bounds and reduced $\tau\tau$ decay branching fraction.Comment: 18pages, 6 figure

Delayed Product Introduction

We investigate the incentives of a monopolistic seller to delay the introduction of a new and improved version of his product. By analyzing a three-period model, we show that the seller may prefer to delay introducing a new product, even though the enabling technologies for the product are already available. The underlying motivation is analogous to that found in the durable goods monopolist literature – the seller suffers from a time inconsistency problem that causes his old and new products to cannibalize each other. Without the ability to remove existing stock of the old product from the market, shorten product durability, or pace research and development (R&D), he may respond by selling the new product later. We characterize the equilibria with delayed introduction, and study their changes with respect to market and product parameters. In particular, we show that delayed introduction could occur regardless of whether the seller can offer upgrade discounts to consumers, that instead, it is related to quality improvement brought about by the new product, durabilities, and discount factors. Further, we show that delayed introduction could bring socially efficient outcomes as well. Based on the insights of the model, we provide practical suggestions on pricing and policies

Media Literacy Education and Curriculum Integration: A Literature Review

Researchers have explored the benefits and significance of media literacy education (MLE) in school education. Media literacy possesses much potential and its application in education has seen much research interest lately. However, little systematic work currently exists on how researchers have applied MLE for education purposes that considers the integration of media literacy and curriculum. To this aim, we systematically reviewed the literature of the last three decades and found 222 articles, of which only a sample of 98 were considered. We performed a narrative analysis of the relevant studies concerning the integration of MLE in school curriculum based on European countries and non-European countries, namely, objectives of MLE, learning experiences of MLE and assessment of MLE. Our review emphasizes three key dimensions of MLE objectives: the knowledge of media, create media product and develop the understanding of mass media. Furthermore, our analysis has uncovered several differences in the stage of MLE integration in the school education sphere—for instance, MLE was approached in a cross-curricular or a subject-specific way in different countries. Finally, MLE assessment should take into account students as well as teachers in training