Professor Nasiry awarded SSHRC Insight Development Grant

Congratulations to Javad Nasiry, Professor in Operations Management who was awarded a 2022-2023 SSHRC Insight Development Grant

“Analytical Models for Electronics Waste Management”

Replacement purchases constitute the majority of sales in markets for new consumer electronics. Manufacturers of such products increasingly opt to offer trade-ins rather than upgrades to frame their replacement sales. A rational consumer model suggests the two are equivalent. The goal of this proposal is to develop a behavioral model that accounts for the disparity in the owners’ and the buyers’ valuations for secondhand products (i.e., the endowment

effect) as well as reference dependence in evaluating a replacement offer. The endowment effect renders the consumer-to-consumer exchange of the secondhand products inefficient and lets the firm control the secondary market more effectively by supplying the collected used products. Our behavioral model will explain why trade-ins are more profitable than upgrades.

Supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

En partie financé par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines.