摘要 : Often, demand depends on historical and expected sales. A particular instance of this phenomenon are snob effects where consumers' willingness to pay and demand are a negative function of past and future sales. We introduce the co... 展开 Often, demand depends on historical and expected sales. A particular instance of this phenomenon are snob effects where consumers' willingness to pay and demand are a negative function of past and future sales. We introduce the concepts "degree of exclusivity" and snob-effect strength and show how firms can benefit from fostering exclusivity. Solving a duopoly model for subgame perfect equilibria, we obtain the following results: a) For snob-effect goods, an anti-"self-fulfilling prophecy" effect can be identified, b) We show that a high snob-effect strength and high degrees of exclusivity dampen competition intensity, c) A high snob-effect strength may be harmful to a firm disadvantaged with respect to the installed base (high installed base) or with respect to the degree of exclusivity (low degree), d) High degrees of exclusivity are optimal for both firms if the costs of exclusivity are sufficiently low. 收起