Dennis Epple

Dennis Epple is Thomas Lord University Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. He coauthored a 1995 Management Science study with Eric D. Darr and Linda Argote examining learning by doing across 36 pizza stores owned by 10 franchisees.

The researchers reported that unit production costs declined as stores gained experience, while acquired knowledge depreciated rapidly. They found evidence of knowledge transfer between stores with the same franchisee, but not between stores owned by different franchisees. Epple’s contribution is relevant to capability compounding because the study distinguishes gaining experience from retaining and sharing its benefits. Its evidence concerns production costs in the stores studied; it does not show that experience always produces a durable advantage.