This paper presents a nonparametric method for calculating a lower bound on the virtual or reservation price of a new good. This allows the welfare effects of product market innovations to be investigated. We illustrate the technique using consumer panel data.

In this article, we present a case study about the potential for new technology paradigms to drive intellectual property regimes towards obsolescence. The subject of the study, plant variety protection, is a little-understood intellectual property regime that mixes copyright and patent concepts....