讲座题目：A Theory Unifying The Long Tail and Blockbuster Phenomena

　　报告人： 胡明 (Professor, University of Toronto)

　　报告时间：2018年6月15日(周五)上午 10：00点

　　报告地点：经管院B247

　　主办单位：管理科学与工程系

　　摘要: We provide a theory that unifies the long tail and blockbuster phenomena. Specifically, we analyze a three-stage game where, first, a large number of potential firms make entry decisions, then those who stay in the market decide on the investment in its product, and lastly customers with heterogeneous preferences arrive sequentially to make purchase decisions based on product quality and historic sales under the network effect. We show analytically that a growing network effect always contributes to more sales concentration on a small number of products, supporting the blockbuster phenomenon. However, product variety and investments in quality, as an outcome of firms' ex ante competitive decisions, may increase or decrease, as the network effect grows. When a parameter that determines the strength of the network effect is below a particular threshold, an increasing network effect would shift more sales towards the products with higher quality, preventing more products from entering the market ex ante and inducing firms to adopt the blockbuster equilibrium strategy by making high-budget products. When the parameter is above the threshold, the network effect will easily cause the market to be concentrated to a few products; even some low-quality products may have a chance to become a "hit." Interestingly, in this case, when the network effect is growing, the ex-ante equilibrium product variety will be broader and firms adopt the niche equilibrium strategy by making low-budget products, a finding which supports the long tail theory. We test our theory with the movie box office data and find strong supporting evidence. (Based on a joint work with Yinbo Feng.)

　　简介: 胡明，加拿大多伦多大学罗特曼商学院教授，2009年博士毕业于美国哥伦比亚大学，2018年入选Poets & Quants “全球前40位40岁以下商学院教授名录”。他先后在UTD24期刊列表中的Management Science、Operations Research、Marketing Science、Manufacturing & Service Operations Management和Production and Operations Management国际学术期刊上发表了17篇论文。他关于库存管理的研究于2014年获国际运筹和管理学会(INFORMS)青年最佳论文奖Honorable Mention。2016年，他获得生产与运作管理学会协会(POMS) 的Wickham Skinner青年研究成就奖。2017年，他关于竞争中的动态收益管理的论文获得国际运筹和管理学会(INFORMS)颁发的Management Science运营管理最佳论文奖。他现任国际一流期刊Naval Research Logistics 主编，和顶级期刊Operations Research，Manufacturing & Service Operations Management和Production and Operations Management副主编。