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Is equipment price deflation a statistical artifact?

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Bart Hobijn

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Abstract

I argue that equipment price deflation might be overstated because the methods used to measure it rely on the erroneous assumption of perfectly competitive markets. The main intuition behind this argument is that what these price indices might actually capture not a price decrease but the erosion of the market power of existing vintages of machines. To illustrate my argument, I introduce an endogenous growth model in which heterogeneous final goods producers can choose the technology they will use. The various technologies are supplied by monopolistically competing machine suppliers. This market structure implies that the best machines are marketed to the best workers and are sold at the highest markup. In my model economy, the endogenously determined markups are such that standard methods will tend to find equipment price deflation, even though the model does not exhibit any equipment price deflation.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of New York in its series Staff Reports with number 139.

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Date of creation: 2001
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:139

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Keywords: Consumption (Economics) ; Computers;

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  2. Reinganum, Jennifer F, 1983. "Uncertain Innovation and the Persistence of Monopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 741-48, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Per Krusell & Lee E. Ohanian & Jose-Victor Rios-Rull & Giovanni L. Violante, 1997. "Capital-skill complementarity and inequality: a macroeconomic analysis," Staff Report 239, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2000. "The resurgence of growth in the late 1990s: is information technology the story?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Gordon, Robert J, 2000. "Does the 'New Economy' Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2607, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Boyan Jovanovic, 1998. "Vintage Capital and Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 497-530, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Dale W. Jorgenson & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2000. "Raising the Speed Limit: US Economic Growth in the Information Age," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 261, OECD, Economics Department. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Krusell, Per, 1997. "Long-Run Implications of Investment-Specific Technological Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 342-62, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Robert E. Hall, 1988. "The Relation Between Price and Marginal Cost in U.S. Industry," NBER Working Papers 1785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Hall, Robert E, 1988. "The Relation between Price and Marginal Cost in U.S. Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 921-47, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Francesco Caselli & Jaume Ventura, 2000. "A Representative Consumer Theory of Distribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 909-926, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Sattinger, Michael, 1975. "Comparative Advantage and the Distributions of Earnings and Abilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(3), pages 455-68, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-51, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Irwin, Douglas A & Klenow, Peter J, 1994. "Learning-by-Doing Spillovers in the Semiconductor Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1200-1227, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Gilbert, Richard J & Newbery, David M G, 1982. "Preemptive Patenting and the Persistence of Monopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 514-26, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Iain M. Cockburn & Aslam H. Anis, 1998. "Hedonic Analysis of Arthritis Drugs," NBER Working Papers 6574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages S71-102, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Lawless, Martina, 2006. "Measurement Issues and International Comparisons of Output and Productivity Growth," MPRA Paper 10007, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  2. Cozzi, Guido & Impullitti, Giammario, 2006. "Technological policy and wage inequality," MPRA Paper 10140, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  3. Dale W. Jorgenson & Mun S. Ho & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2002. "Projecting productivity growth: lessons from the U.S. growth resurgence," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Q3, pages 1-13. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Jason G. Cummins & Giovanni L. Violante, 2002. "Investment-Specific Technical Change in the US (1947-2000): Measurement and Macroeconomic Consequences," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(2), pages 243-284, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Diego Comin & Mark Gertler, 2006. "Medium-Term Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 523-551, June. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Bart Hobijn, 2002. "On both sides of the quality bias in price indexes," Staff Reports 157, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
  7. Peter Ireland & Scott Schuh, 2008. "Productivity and U.S. Macroeconomic Performance: Interpreting the Past and Predicting the Future with a Two-Sector Real Business Cycle Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(3), pages 473-492, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Hyunbae Chun & M. Ishaq Nadiri, 2002. "Decomposing Productivity Growth in the U.S. Computer Industry," NBER Working Papers 9267, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Boyan Jovanovic, 2002. "EconomicDynamics Interviews Boyan Jovanovic on Technology Adoption," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(1), November. [Downloadable!]
  10. Henning Ahnert & Geoff Kenny, 2004. "Quality adjustment of European price statistics and the role for hedonics," Occasional Paper Series 15, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  11. Peter N. Ireland, 2007. "On the Welfare Cost of Inflation and the Recent Behavior of Money Demand," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 662, Boston College Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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