The Adoption of New Technologies: Understanding Hollywood's (Slow and Uneven) Conversion to Color

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Johns Hopkins University; California State University System; California State University East Bay
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050714000837
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 987-1014
• 关键词: american agriculture; film grosses; diffusion; threshold; tractor; reaper

摘要

Hollywood converted to sound in three years. In comparison, Hollywood's conversion to color required more than three decades, and included a three-year period in which the share of color movies declined from 58 to 31 percent. We investigate this puzzling adoption profile using detailed data on 7,022 movies between 1940 and 1959. These data indicate differences in studio size and complementarity between genre and color impeded the rapid diffusion of color. These data also indicate that disadoption followed weak returns to a wave of color releases that were encouraged by the introduction of a low-cost color process.