报告题目：Leveraging Network Effects for Connected Products: Strategies and Implications for the Value Chain（互联产品如何利用网络效应：商业策略和对价值链的影响）

报告人：陆卓然（上海交通大学）

报告时间：2024年10月22日（星期二）上午10:00-11:15

报告地点：英国正版365官方网站大楼318

邀请部门：经济学系

报告人简介：

陆卓然，上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院助理教授，美国加州大学洛杉矶分校经济学博士，清华大学经济学学士。主要研究领域为契约理论、产业组织理论、组织经济学、网络经济学、数字经济。他目前主持一项国家自然科学基金青年项目，并参与一项国家自然科学基金重大项目和一项国家自然科学基金专项项目。

报告摘要：

This paper explores how value chain participants can leverage the business value generated by network effects in connected products. Using a classic two-tier framework, we first present a benchmark model of a decentralized value chain governed by a wholesale price contract, demonstrating how network effects enhance profitability. We then investigate two representative strategies that help exploit the value of network effects more effectively: network expansion via seeding and engineering network strength through investment. Our model offers three key takeaways: First, the presence of network effects incentivizes the upstream manufacturer to maintain a low wholesale price, enabling the downstream retailer to serve a larger network. This effectively transforms the wholesale price into a “quantity-forcing” contract, thus alleviating double marginalization problem. Second, compared with the centralized value chain, we show that the marginal returns on investment in connection strength can be greater in the decentralized value chain, suggesting that the investment in network effects may be more radical in that case. Third, these two strategies—seeding and investing—are both reinforced as marginal production costs decrease. This complementarity indicates that improvements in production efficiency can simultaneously trigger a business model change to embrace seeding and a strategic shift toward a "connectivity revolution." We also discuss the welfare implications of these findings.