The Experts below are selected from a list of 1428 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Chihiro Watanabe - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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digitalized bioeconomy Planned Obsolescence driven circular economy enabled by co evolutionary coupling
Technology in Society, 2019Co-Authors: Chihiro Watanabe, Nasir Naveed, Pekka NeittaanmakiAbstract:Abstract Driven by digital solutions, the bioeconomy is taking major steps forward in recent years toward achievement of the long-lasting goal of transition from a traditional fossil economy to a bioeconomy-based circular economy. The coupling of digitalization and bioeconomy is leading towards a digitalized bioeconomy that can satisfy the shift in consumers’ preferences for eco-consciousness, which in turn induces coupling of up-down stream operation in the value chain. Thus, the co-evolution of the coupling of digitalization and bioeconomy and of upstream and downstream operations is transforming the forest-based bioeconomy into a digital platform industry. Aiming at addressing this transformation, a model was developed that explains above mentioned dynamism and demonstrated its reliability through an empirical analysis focusing on the development trajectory of UPM (forest-based ecosystem leader in Europe and a world pioneer in the circular economy) over the last quarter century, highlighting its efforts towards Planned Obsolescence-driven circular economy. It was comprehended that with the advancement of digital innovations, UPM has incorporated a self-propagating function that accelerates digital solution. Furthermore, this self-propagating function was triggered by coupling with a downstream leader, Amazon, in the United States. The dynamism in transforming a forest-based bioeconomy into a digital platform industry is thus clarified, and new insights common to all industries in the digital economy are provided.
Dwijen Rangnekar - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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R&D appropriability and Planned Obsolescence: empirical evidence from wheat breeding in the UK (1960–1995)
Industrial and Corporate Change, 2002Co-Authors: Dwijen RangnekarAbstract:Plant breeders face a unique appropriation problem—plants are reproducible, genetic information is heritable and seeds can be multiplied. The paper uses varietal age as a proxy for durability to examine Planned Obsolescence strategies in UK wheat breeding. Market‐weighted age fell from 13 years (1960s) to 5.5 years (1990s). This fall is on account of increased varietal proliferation and breeding strategies that focus on incremental productivity improvements (i.e. increased efficiency) and narrow and limited disease resistance (i.e. reduced durability).
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r d appropriability and Planned Obsolescence empirical evidence from wheat breeding in the uk 1960 1995
Industrial and Corporate Change, 2002Co-Authors: Dwijen RangnekarAbstract:Plant breeders face a unique appropriation problem—plants are reproducible, genetic information is heritable and seeds can be multiplied. The paper uses varietal age as a proxy for durability to examine Planned Obsolescence strategies in UK wheat breeding. Market‐weighted age fell from 13 years (1960s) to 5.5 years (1990s). This fall is on account of increased varietal proliferation and breeding strategies that focus on incremental productivity improvements (i.e. increased efficiency) and narrow and limited disease resistance (i.e. reduced durability).
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R&D Appropriability and Planned Obsolescence: Empirical Evidence from Wheat Breeding in the UK (1960-1995)
2002Co-Authors: Dwijen RangnekarAbstract:Plant breeders face a unique appropriation problem - plants are reproducible, genetic information is heritable and seeds can be multiplied. The paper uses indicators of varietal age as a proxy for durability to examine strategies of Planned Obsolescence. Using wheat breeding in the UK, evidence of strategies of Planned Obsolescence is confirmed. This is then corroborated with evidence of tendencies towards increased proliferation of varieties on the market and breeding strategies that focus on incremental productivity improvements (i.e. increased efficiency) and narrow and limited disease resistance (i.e. reduced durability).
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Planned Obsolescence and Plant Breeding: Empirical Evidence from Wheat Breeding in the UK (1965-1995)
2000Co-Authors: Dwijen RangnekarAbstract:Models predict that oligopolists producing a durable good have an incentive to reduce the durability of the good as a means to appropriate the returns to investments in R&D. Using these theoretical insights, the paper empirically examines these strategies of appropriation in wheat breeding. Breeders face a unique appropriation problem because plant varieties (a durable good) demonstrate easy reproducibility and heritability of characteristics. In addition, the available legal scope of protection, till recent revisions, has tended to provide limited protection compared to protection available in other sectors. Strategies of Planned Obsolescence are indicated in the effort to reduce the durability of plant varieties so as to induce regular replacement purchases by farmers. Empirical evidence of the strategy is provided in decreasing tendency of the market-weighted age of varieties, which falls from 13 years in the 1960s to 5 years in the 1990s. In addition, the paper reports evidence of a lax approach towards developing broad-based disease resistance, which can be interpreted as a means to support the strategy of Planned Obsolescence.
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Innovative appropriation: the role of law, economics and science in transforming plants into products - a case study of wheat breeding in the UK
2000Co-Authors: Dwijen RangnekarAbstract:The thesis is a case-study of wheat breeding in the UK. It is contextualised by a focus on the interacting influence of the three spheres of law, science and economics in determining the patterns of innovation and strategies of appropriation. Three concerns ground the thesis. The first concern is to develop a framework to analyse the dynamics of innovation-appropriation in plant breeding. Adopting an evolutionary approach, the thesis presents the technology paradigm of (wheat) breeding (chapter 5) and characteristic properties of the seed (chapter 6) as factors that substantially determine innovation-appropriation issues. Following this conceptualisation, the thesis posits that the main appropriation strategy is that of Planned Obsolescence which aims to subvert the durability of genetic information (software) embedded in seeds. Secondly, empirical measures of Planned Obsolescence are developed and examined (chapter 7). Empirical evidence of Planned Obsolescence is offered in terms of the diminishing age of varieties. The strategy of Planned Obsolescence is supported by a widening of varietal portfolios and breeding strategies aimed at maintaining narrow and specific disease resistance profiles and incremental productivity improvements. Innovation avenues of developing dwarf wheats, yield-quality tradeoff in bread wheats and F1-hybrids are assessed from the perspective of Planned Obsolescence. Finally, the thesis considers the institutional construction of the regulatory system in the UK with specific attention to the Plant Variety and Seeds Act (1964) of the UK (chapter 9). While popular claims of expediency and autonomy of action are dismissed, the discussion demonstrates the manner in which the rhetoric of national interest was deployed to generate consensus across divergent interest groups. Of key importance in the legislation in the delinking merit considerations from the grant of protection process, an achievement by the breeders that allowed the proliferation of near-identical varieties of marginally improved productivity. Consequently, the PBRs system is presented as a juridical legitimation of the strategy of Planned Obsolescence.
Pekka Neittaanmaki - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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digitalized bioeconomy Planned Obsolescence driven circular economy enabled by co evolutionary coupling
Technology in Society, 2019Co-Authors: Chihiro Watanabe, Nasir Naveed, Pekka NeittaanmakiAbstract:Abstract Driven by digital solutions, the bioeconomy is taking major steps forward in recent years toward achievement of the long-lasting goal of transition from a traditional fossil economy to a bioeconomy-based circular economy. The coupling of digitalization and bioeconomy is leading towards a digitalized bioeconomy that can satisfy the shift in consumers’ preferences for eco-consciousness, which in turn induces coupling of up-down stream operation in the value chain. Thus, the co-evolution of the coupling of digitalization and bioeconomy and of upstream and downstream operations is transforming the forest-based bioeconomy into a digital platform industry. Aiming at addressing this transformation, a model was developed that explains above mentioned dynamism and demonstrated its reliability through an empirical analysis focusing on the development trajectory of UPM (forest-based ecosystem leader in Europe and a world pioneer in the circular economy) over the last quarter century, highlighting its efforts towards Planned Obsolescence-driven circular economy. It was comprehended that with the advancement of digital innovations, UPM has incorporated a self-propagating function that accelerates digital solution. Furthermore, this self-propagating function was triggered by coupling with a downstream leader, Amazon, in the United States. The dynamism in transforming a forest-based bioeconomy into a digital platform industry is thus clarified, and new insights common to all industries in the digital economy are provided.
Roland Strausz - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Planned Obsolescence as an Incentive Device for Unobservable Quality
The Economic Journal, 2009Co-Authors: Roland StrauszAbstract:Stressing the multi-dimensional character of quality, I propose a new theory of Planned Obsolescence as an incentive device that benefits consumers. I argue that Planned Obsolescence increases the frequency of repurchases and, therefore, enables consumers to punish producers faster for a lack of overall quality. This strengthens the producers’ incentives to provide adequate levels of quality. The theory implies a trade-off between a good's durability and its other unobservable quality attributes. This leads to an artificially high degree of Obsolescence as compared to the first best where quality is observable.
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Planned Obsolescence AS AN INCENTIVE DEVICE FOR UNOBSERVABLE QUALITY
2009Co-Authors: Roland Strausz, Helmut Bester, Jay Pil ChoiAbstract:Stressing the multi-dimensional character of quality, I propose a new theory of Planned Obsolescence as an incentive device that benefits consumers. I argue that Planned Obsolescence increases the frequency of repurchases and, therefore, enables consumers to punish producers faster for a lack of overall quality. This strengthens the producers incentives to provide adequate levels of quality. The theory implies a trade-off between a good’s durability and its other unobservable quality attributes. This leads to an artificially high degree of Obsolescence as compared to the first best where quality is observable. Planned or built-in Obsolescence is a recurring complaint of many consumers. 1 Popular books argue that goods are made to break (Slade, 2006) and describe firms as merely waste makers (Vance, 1960) who push consumption by producing goods with Planned Obsolescence. The naive argument put forward is that, by reducing durability, consumers have to buy the product more often and firms increase their sales. Yet, this reasoning ignores that a razor blade that delivers only half as many shaves is also only half as valuable to the consumer (Levhari and Peles, 1973). 2 In other words, by slashing the lifetime of products by half, consumers do have to buy them twice as often but are willing to pay only half as much. In the end, the firm’s monetary revenues remain the same. Even though the simple sales explanation is easily refuted, it raises the question of how we can reconcile the sustained feeling that firms produce goods with inefficiently low durability with the incentives that firms have in a market economy. This article provides a new answer to this question and argues that reduced durability may actually be in the interest of consumers: Planned Obsolescence strengthens the producer’s incentives to provide adequate quality in other dimensions. The theory builds on the intuitive idea that the need for repurchases gives the consumer power over the producer; if the product disappoints the consumer, he will not repurchase it. This threat induces the producer to provide an appropriate quality. By linking the frequency of repurchases to Obsolescence, I arrive at a theory of Planned Obsolescence as an incentive device for unobservable quality. I demonstrate the incentive effect of reduced durability in the repeated games framework of Klein and Leffler (1981) and Shapiro (1983). Because this framework
Nasir Naveed - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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digitalized bioeconomy Planned Obsolescence driven circular economy enabled by co evolutionary coupling
Technology in Society, 2019Co-Authors: Chihiro Watanabe, Nasir Naveed, Pekka NeittaanmakiAbstract:Abstract Driven by digital solutions, the bioeconomy is taking major steps forward in recent years toward achievement of the long-lasting goal of transition from a traditional fossil economy to a bioeconomy-based circular economy. The coupling of digitalization and bioeconomy is leading towards a digitalized bioeconomy that can satisfy the shift in consumers’ preferences for eco-consciousness, which in turn induces coupling of up-down stream operation in the value chain. Thus, the co-evolution of the coupling of digitalization and bioeconomy and of upstream and downstream operations is transforming the forest-based bioeconomy into a digital platform industry. Aiming at addressing this transformation, a model was developed that explains above mentioned dynamism and demonstrated its reliability through an empirical analysis focusing on the development trajectory of UPM (forest-based ecosystem leader in Europe and a world pioneer in the circular economy) over the last quarter century, highlighting its efforts towards Planned Obsolescence-driven circular economy. It was comprehended that with the advancement of digital innovations, UPM has incorporated a self-propagating function that accelerates digital solution. Furthermore, this self-propagating function was triggered by coupling with a downstream leader, Amazon, in the United States. The dynamism in transforming a forest-based bioeconomy into a digital platform industry is thus clarified, and new insights common to all industries in the digital economy are provided.