Measurement of quality changes has proven to be an especially difficult aspect of calculating unbiased rates of inflation. We propose a new methodology of capturing quality improvements based on consumer focus groups and apply this methodology in an environment where quality changes might be expected to be especially rapid and extensive, a post-communist transition economy. We find that the methodology indicates a substantial understatement of quality improvements during transition, and, therefore, a substantial overstatement of inflation resulting in a serious downward bias in growth rate estimates for post-communist economies. The move to free markets has apparently improved consumers= welfare more by improving what they can purchase than by increasing how much they can purchase. Overall, mismeasurement of quality changes may have understated Czech growth rates during the first decade after communism by as much as 5 percentage points per year.
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Length: 30 pages Date of creation: 01 May 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2004-681
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Find related papers by JEL classification: C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation P24 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Systems and Transition Economies - - - National Income, Product, and Expenditure; Money; Inflation
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Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2001.
"Quantifying Quality Growth,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1006-1030, September.
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