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Learning‐by‐Doing, Organizational Forgetting, and Industry Dynamics
Author(s) -
Besanko David,
Doraszelski Ulrich,
Kryukov Yaroslav,
Satterthwaite Mark
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
econometrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 16.7
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1468-0262
pISSN - 0012-9682
DOI - 10.3982/ecta6994
Subject(s) - forgetting , dominance (genetics) , variety (cybernetics) , dynamics (music) , competition (biology) , economics , industrial organization , microeconomics , cognitive psychology , computer science , sociology , psychology , artificial intelligence , pedagogy , ecology , biochemistry , chemistry , biology , gene
Learning‐by‐doing and organizational forgetting are empirically important in a variety of industrial settings. This paper provides a general model of dynamic competition that accounts for these fundamentals and shows how they shape industry structure and dynamics. We show that forgetting does not simply negate learning. Rather, they are distinct economic forces that interact in subtle ways to produce a great variety of pricing behaviors and industry dynamics. In particular, a model with learning and forgetting can give rise to aggressive pricing behavior, varying degrees of long‐run industry concentration ranging from moderate leadership to absolute dominance, and multiple equilibria.