Many durable goods, particularly in the high technology sector of the economy, experience rapid quality improvement. As a result, replacement is typically due to obsolescence rather than breakdown, and replacement cycles are relatively short. When these goods are vertically differentiated,...

This paper measures cross-price elasticity for online and retail personal computers (PCs) across several years. The results indicate that cross-price elasticity for 1996 and 1997 was a statistical 0, while in 1998 it was large and statistically significant (approximately 3.0). I consider both...

This paper estimates a structural model of demand for the personal computer (PC) by repeat purchasers. Taking advantage of a large dataset on household-level PC purchases, the econometric model uses variation in PC holdings among PC owners to identify households' marginal values of quality...

This paper empirically analyzes how households' PC purchasing behaviors change with market experience. We find that: households generally exhibit inertia in their PC purchases, the level of inertia is increasing as a function of experience on the PC market, and, for households switching brands,...