Most existing empirical work on technology diffusion assumes technologies to remain constant throughout the diffusion process. However, many consumer technologies improve significantly over time. Using data on the characteristics of new mobile handsets over a ten-year period and controlling for...

How can economic theory explain the reasons why consumers adopt innovations? Using the example of innovations in washing machines two approaches are compared. The first focuses in the manner of household production theory on changes in constraints without specifying preferences, leading to the...

In Germany, solar thermal systems (STS) have only diffused to a minor extent yet. This paper analyzes, which demand side factors are decisive for the further proliferation of this environmentally benign technology. Making use of a consumer survey in North-West Germany in 2007, we examine the...

This survey reviews the empirical literature on the impact of environmental policy instruments on the rate and direction of technological change. The survey is explicitly focused on the empirical identification of the hypothesis to expect a stronger impact from market-based incentives than from...

The clean development mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol may induce a technological change in developing countries. As an alternative to the CDM-regime, developing countries may accept a (generous) cap on their own emissions, let domestic producers invest in new efficient technologies, and...

This paper analyzes the impact of different payment regimes for mobile-to-mobile off-net calls on the diffusion of mobile telephony, using data on 84 countries from all over the world. Since the decision whether or not countries are likely to switch from RPP to CPP is not independent from...

Europe, as all modern economies, is shifting towards an information-based society, where Information Technology (IT) is dramatically modifying patterns of production and consumption and the modern way of life. Low-cost data processing and transmission technologies are leading the way not only in...

This paper focuses on the effects of within and between standards competition and competition between firms on the performance of an emerging new technology, digital mobile telecommunication (2G). Our empirical exploration provides a more complete picture of the market dynamics of digital mobile...

Many new technologies exhibit clear generational changes. The empirical literature on technology diffusion traditionally analyses the spread of new technologies generically. We use data from the mobile phone industry, where first-generation (1G) and second-generation technologies (2G) can be...

To evaluate how occurring critical incidents change customer perceptions of brand personality, this study measures the impact on the basis of an online experiment. For this purpose, 1,132 usable responses are gathered considering the smartphone brands of Apple and Nokia as well as different...