The Demand for Consumer Durables

ISBN-13: 9789029870177 / Angielski / Miękka / 1976 / 274 str.

W. J. Oomens

Opis

The use of growth functions for estimating developments in consumer demand is already rather old. In many books on 'mathematics for economists' one can find one or more examples of growth functions, however, usually without any economic considerations as a background. Furthermore there are many econometric contributions on the subject scattered over many books and journals. In this book - the English translation of the author's doctoral thesis - , Dr. W.J. Oomens gives a highly unified treatment of the subject. The book consists of two main parts, preceded by an introduction and concluded by an application. The first main part starts with a discussion of the general notions underlying the theory of the development of demand for new consumer durable goods and next describes the many models known from the literature, using these general notions. Because of the unified treatment the author succeeds in clearly ranking the different models, in presenting the aspects they have in cornmon and in explaining the properties which are different in the models being described. The critical discussion of the existing models leads a.o. to a new model, the 'heterogeneous generalized logistic model', in which environmental variables are inserted into the purchase propensity function as well as into the function for the variable saturation degree.

Spis treści

1. Introduction.- 1.1. Definition and limitation of the concept ‘consumer durable’.- 1.2. The total market of a consumer durable.- 1.3. Initial and replacement demand for a consumer durable.- 2. The Initial Demand for Consumer Durables.- 2.1. Introduction.- 2.2. General characteristics of purchase behaviour models.- 2.3. The growth process of the ownership of a consumer durable, environment factors constant.- 2.3.1. Introduction.- 2.3.2. The exponential model.- 2.3.3. The gamma-exponential model.- 2.3.4. Criticism of the exponential models.- 2.3.5. The logistic model.- 2.3.6. The semi-logistic model.- 2.3.7. Criticism of the logistic models.- 2.3.8. The Gompertz model and callied models.- 2.3.8.1. Introduction.- 2.3.8.2. The Gompertz model.- 2.3.8.3. The Johnson model.- 2.3.8.4. The log-inverse model.- 2.3.8.5. The generalised log-inverse model.- 2.3.9. Criticism of the Gompertz and allied models.- 2.3.10. The homegeneous Weibull model.- 2.3.11. The gamma-Weibull model.- 2.3.12. Criticism of the Weibull models.- 2.3.13. The linear-learning model.- 2.3.14. The gamma-linear learning model.- 2.3.15. Criticism of the linear-learning models.- 2.3.16. The heterogeneous generalised logistic model.- 2.3.16.1. Processing the influence of purchase event feedback.- 2.3.16.2. Processing the heterogeneity of the initial purchase propensity.- 2.3.16.3. The heterogeneous generalised logistic model.- 2.4. The growth process of the ownership of a consumer durable environment factors variable.- 2.4.1. Introduction.- 2.4.2. The growth process with a constant saturation degree and a purchase propensity function dependent on environment factors.- 2.4.2.1. Introduction.- 2.4.2.2. The Dernburg model.- 2.4.2.3. Criticism.- 2.4.2.4. The Massy model.- 2.4.2.5. Criticism.- 2.4.3. The growth process with unlimited expansion of the saturation level.- 2.4.3.1. Introduction.- 2.4.3.2. The Stone and Rowe model.- 2.4.3.3. Criticism.- 2.4.3.4. The Roos and Szeliski model.- 2.4.3.5. Criticism.- 2.4.4. The growth process with limited expansion of the saturation degree, i.e. level.- 2.4.4.1. Introduction.- 2.4.4.2. The Bain model.- 2.4.4.3. The Klaassen and Koyck model.- 2.4.4.4. Criticism.- 2.4.4.5. The Bonus model.- 2.4.4.6. Criticism.- 2.4.5. The influence of changes in the population of families.- 2.4.6. The heterogeneous generalised logistic model with environment factors.- 3. Replacement Demand for Consumer Durables.- 3.1. Introduction.- 3.2. Determination of replacement demand using survival fractions.- 3.2.1. Introduction.- 3.2.2. Scrappage as a stochastic process.- 3.2.3. Criticism.- 3.2.4. Lifetime as a stochastic quantity.- 3.2.5. Criticism.- 3.2.6. Lifetime as a deterministic quantity.- 3.2.7. Criticism.- 3.3. Determination of replacement demand on basis of stock and purchase series.- 3.3.1. Introduction.- 3.3.2. Methods of approximating the average lifetime.- 3.3.3. Criticism.- 3.3.4. Methods of approximating the lifetime distribution.- 3.4. Final conclusions.- 4. The Demand for Television Sets in the United States.- 4.1. The data.- 4.2. Initial demand for television sets in the U.S..- 4.3. Replacement demand for television sets in the U.S..- 4.4. Forecast of the demand for television sets in the U.S., 1971–75.- Appendix A Calculation example of the relation between F(t), f(t) and K(t).- Appendix B Calculation of the relation between variable saturation degree and average spendable family income.- Appendix C The gamma-scrappage program applied to replacement demand for television sets in West Germany.- References.