Literature Survey: Mathematical Models in the Analysis of Durable Goods with Emphasis on Information Systems and Operations Management Issues

Abstract

Durable goods account for a significant portion of the economy and have been of considerable interest to academic researchers, especially economists, over the last four decades. Given the importance of strategic issues concerning durable goods markets to IS and OM researchers, our objective is to present a broad perspective of the research in this field that can serve as a starting point for their modeling efforts when analyzing these markets. Due to the complexity of these markets and the strategic inter-linkage of decisions over time, a careful examination of the models is essential for the proper understanding and interpretation of the results from the literature. This paper provides a macro perspective of the research problems, a simple integrative framework for modeling durable goods, an introduction to the models and solution concepts commonly used in the literature, and a discussion of the primary results in the context of their modeling choices. Potentially interesting directions for future IS and OM research in this area are also identified.