IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uwa/wpaper/11-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quality, Quantity, Spending and Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth W Clements

    (UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia)

  • Grace Gao

    (UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia)

Abstract

One measure of the change in the “quality” of consumption is the degree to which the consumption basket as a whole moves towards more luxurious goods, away from necessities. We introduce two related measures based on the luxury/necessity distinction. One is an index of the extent to which the prices of luxuries change as compared to necessities, while the second indexes the change in spending. These two measures are interpreted as the price of and spending on quality. The “volume” of quality is then spending deflated by its price. Using the recent International Comparison Program data for 100+ countries, we find that on average quality increases with income, but at a slower rate; luxuries are relatively more expensive in richer countries, necessities cheaper; and approximately 80 percent of additional spending on quality flows into a volume component, with the remaining 20 percent accounted for by prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth W Clements & Grace Gao, 2011. "Quality, Quantity, Spending and Prices," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 11-12, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwa:wpaper:11-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.business.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1857922/11-12-Quality,-Quantity,-Spending-and-Prices.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Seale, James L., Jr. & Regmi, Anita & Bernstein, Jason, 2003. "International Evidence On Food Consumption Patterns," Technical Bulletins 33580, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Finke, Renate, 1983. "A new cross-country tabulation of the quality index of consumption," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 11-14.
    3. Kenneth W. Clements & H.Y Izan & E Antony Selvanathan, 2005. "Stochastic Index Numbers: A Review," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 05-08, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    4. H. Theil, 1952. "Qualities, Prices and Budget Enquiries," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 19(3), pages 129-147.
    5. Muellbauer, John, 1974. "Household Production Theory, Quality, and the "Hedonic Technique."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 977-994, December.
    6. Pendakur, Krishna, 2002. "Taking prices seriously in the measurement of inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 47-69, October.
    7. Kenneth W. Clements & Dongling Chen, 2010. "Affluence and Food: A Simple Way to Infer Incomes," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(4), pages 909-926.
    8. Clements, Kenneth W. & Gao, Grace, 2012. "Quality, quantity, spending and prices," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1376-1391.
    9. Veblen, Thorstein, 1899. "The Theory of the Leisure Class," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number veblen1899.
    10. Fry, Jane M. & Fry, Tim R. L. & McLaren, Keith R., 1996. "The stochastic specification of demand share equations: Restricting budget shares to the unit simplex," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 377-385, August.
    11. Aaron Nicholas & Ranjan Ray & Ma. Rebecca Valenzuela, 2010. "Evaluating the Distributional Implications of Price Movements: Methodology, Application and Australian Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(274), pages 352-366, September.
    12. Ernst R. Berndt & Neal J. Rappaport, 2001. "Price and Quality of Desktop and Mobile Personal Computers: A Quarter-Century Historical Overview," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 268-273, May.
    13. Bela Balassa, 1964. "The Purchasing-Power Parity Doctrine: A Reappraisal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72, pages 584-584.
    14. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    15. Jack Triplett, 2004. "Handbook on Hedonic Indexes and Quality Adjustments in Price Indexes: Special Application to Information Technology Products," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2004/9, OECD Publishing.
    16. James L. Seale & Anita Regmi, 2006. "Modeling International Consumption Patterns," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(4), pages 603-624, December.
    17. Muellbauer, John, 1974. "Prices and Inequality: The United Kingdom Experience," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 84(333), pages 32-55, March.
    18. Zvi Griliches, 1961. "Hedonic Price Indexes for Automobiles: An Econometric of Quality Change," NBER Chapters, in: The Price Statistics of the Federal Goverment, pages 173-196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Saeed Heravi & Alan Heston & Mick Silver, 2003. "Using Scanner Data to Estimate Country Price Parities: A Hedonic Regression Approach," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 49(1), pages 1-21, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Chai & Elena Stepanova & Alessio Moneta, 2022. "Quantifying Expenditure Hierarchies and the Expansion of Global Consumption Diversity," LEM Papers Series 2022/29, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Clements, Kenneth W. & Gao, Grace, 2012. "Quality, quantity, spending and prices," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1376-1391.
    3. Sheng, Yu & Song, Ligang, 2019. "Agricultural production and food consumption in China: A long-term projection," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 15-29.
    4. Andreas Chai, 2018. "Household consumption patterns and the sectoral composition of growing economies: A review of the interlinkages," Discussion Papers in Economics economics:201802, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    5. Chai, Andreas & Stepanova, Elena & Moneta, Alessio, 2023. "Quantifying expenditure hierarchies and the expansion of global consumption diversity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 860-886.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. W. Erwin Diewert, 2003. "Hedonic Regressions. A Consumer Theory Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Scanner Data and Price Indexes, pages 317-348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Paul Chwelos, 2003. "Approaches to performance measurement in hedonic analysis: Price indexes for laptop computers in the 1990's," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 199-224.
    3. Seale, James L. & Solano, Alexis A., 2012. "The changing demand for energy in rich and poor countries over 25years," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1834-1844.
    4. Lars Nesheim, 2006. "Hedonic price functions," CeMMAP working papers CWP18/06, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Victor Ginsburgh & Jianping Mei & Michael Moses, 2006. "On the computation of art indices in art," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7290, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Gian Maria Tomat, 2005. "Prices, Product Differentiation And Quality Measurement: A Comparison Between Hedonic And Matched Model Methods," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 547, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    7. Bhattacharyya, Aditi & Kutlu, Levent & Sickles, Robin C., 2018. "Pricing Inputs and Outputs: Market prices versus shadow prices, market power, and welfare analysis," Working Papers 18-009, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    8. Bodo E. Steiner, 2004. "Australian wines in the British wine market: A hedonic price analysis," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 287-307.
    9. Naoki Watanabe & Ryo Nakajima & Takanori Ida, 2010. "Quality-Adjusted Prices of Japanese Mobile Phone Handsets and Carriers’ Strategies," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(4), pages 391-412, June.
    10. Adam Gorajek, 2018. "Econometric Perspectives on Economic Measurement," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2018-08, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Anders Kjelsrud, 2022. "To adjust or not to adjust? Spatial price variation and the measurement of poverty," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 773-796, July.
    12. Kenneth W Clements & Yihui Lan & Haiyan Liu & Long Vo, 2022. "The Icp, Ppp And Household Expenditure Patterns," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 22-18, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    13. Bongers, Anelí & Torres, José L., 2014. "Technological change in U.S. jet fighter aircraft," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1570-1581.
    14. Harald Edquist, 2010. "Does hedonic price indexing change our interpretation of economic history? Evidence from Swedish electrification," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(2), pages 500-523, May.
    15. Ranjan Ray, 2017. "The Role of Prices in Welfare Comparisons: Methodological Developments and a Selective Survey of the Empirical Literature," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(301), pages 314-332, June.
    16. Jéssica Fernanda Castaño Lavado & Miguel Ángel Morales Mosquera, 2015. "Revisión Metodológica de Índices de Precios de la Vivienda," Borradores de Economia 13317, Banco de la Republica.
    17. Fadhuile, A., 2018. "Can we explain pesticide price trend by the regulation changes ?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277112, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Hill, Robert J. & Melser, Daniel & Syed, Iqbal, 2009. "Measuring a boom and bust: The Sydney housing market 2001-2006," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 193-205, September.
    19. Zhang, Qi, 2017. "The Balassa–Samuelson relationship: services, manufacturing and product quality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68705, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Edquist, Harald, 2005. "Do hedonic price indexes change history? The case of electrification," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 586, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 29 Apr 2005.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uwa:wpaper:11-12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sam Tang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuwaau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.