Abstract
This paper presents a stochastic model of the adoption process for durables that explicitly incorporates heterogeneity in adoption rates among the consumers. The model assumes that the individual adoption times follow the Weibull distribution. Heterogeneity in adoption rates is represented by the gamma distribution. The resulting Burr distribution is more general than the Bass model, fits data as well as the Bass model estimated using OLS regression, and has parameters that can be used to make inferences about individual adoption behavior without being influenced by spurious aggregation effects.
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Special thanks are due to Professor Donald Lehmann for providing numerous suggestions and encouragement at all stages of the study. Thanks are also due to Professors David Schmittlein and Richard Colombo and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.
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Narayanan, S. Incorporating heterogeneous adoption rates in new product diffusion: A model and empirical investigations. Marketing Letters 3, 395–406 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993923
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993923