IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/7786.html

Energy Efficiency, User-Cost Change, and the Measurement of Durable Goods Prices

In: The U.S. National Income and Product Accounts: Selected Topics

Author

Listed:
  • Robert J. Gordon

Abstract

This paper develops the theory of price measurement when quality change is "nonproportional", yielding increases in the user value of a given product in a different proportion than the increase in production cost associated with the quality improvement. The theoretical section demonstrates that "nonproportional" quality change is treated consistently by properly defined input and output price indexes; that both types of indexes should he based on quality adjustments that use the criterion of user value rather than production cost; and that if improvements in energy efficiency are embodied in a good by its manufacturer, the prices of new models should be adjusted for the user value of these cost savings. The proposed approach is applied in a case study of the commercial aircraft industry. In contrast to the official price index for aircraft that rises at a 2.5 percent annual rate between 1957 and 1972,a new index is developed that declines at a 7.1 percent annual rate over the same period. The new index implies that output and productivity in the aircraft industry grew much faster than previously believed between 1957 and1972,while total factor productivity in the airline industry grew much less rapidly. The proposed quality adjustments for individual aircraft types are corroborated by price ratios observed in the used aircraft market.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Robert J. Gordon, 1982. "Energy Efficiency, User-Cost Change, and the Measurement of Durable Goods Prices," NBER Chapters, in: The U.S. National Income and Product Accounts: Selected Topics, pages 205-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:7786
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7786.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Griliches, Zvi, 1980. "R & D and the Productivity Slowdown," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(2), pages 343-348, May.
    2. Berndt, Ernst R & Wood, David O, 1975. "Technology, Prices, and the Derived Demand for Energy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 57(3), pages 259-268, August.
    3. Edward F. Denison, 1957. "Theoretical Aspects of Quality Change, Capital Consumption, and Net Capital Formation," NBER Chapters, in: Problems of Capital Formation: Concepts, Measurement, and Controlling Factors, pages 215-284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. George J. Stigler & James K. Kindahl, 1970. "The Behavior of Industrial Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number stig70-1, January.
    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. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Bulow, Jeremy I & Summers, Lawrence H, 1984. "The Taxation of Risky Assets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 20-39, February.
    3. Robert S. Chirinko, 1985. "The Ineffectiveness of Effective Tax Rates on Business Investment," NBER Working Papers 1704, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Zvi Griliches, 1991. "Hedonic Price Indexes and the Measurement of Capital and Productivity: Some Historical Reflections," NBER Chapters, in: Fifty Years of Economic Measurement: The Jubilee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, pages 185-206, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Dale W. Jorgenson, 1991. "Productivity and Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Fifty Years of Economic Measurement: The Jubilee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, pages 19-118, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ulrich Witt & Christian Gross, 2020. "The rise of the “service economy” in the second half of the twentieth century and its energetic contingencies," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 231-246, April.
    3. Wipo, 2011. "World Intellectual Property Report 2011- The Changing Face of Innovation," WIPO Economics & Statistics Series, World Intellectual Property Organization - Economics and Statistics Division, number 2011:944, April.
    4. Chengjun Lu & Duanming Zhou, 2009. "Industrial energy substitution and a revised Allen elasticity in China," Frontiers of Economics in China, Springer;Higher Education Press, vol. 4(1), pages 110-124, March.
    5. Zaheer Abbas, 2020. "Re-assessing the Contribution of Energy Consumption to GDP Per- Capita: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(6), pages 404-410.
    6. Halkos, George E. & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2011. "Oil consumption and economic efficiency: A comparative analysis of advanced, developing and emerging economies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1354-1362, May.
    7. Lundmark, Robert & Söderholm, Patrik & Lundmark, Robert, 2003. "Structural changes in Swedish wastepaper demand: a variable cost function approach," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 41-63.
    8. Lecca, Patrizio & Swales, Kim & Turner, Karen, 2011. "An investigation of issues relating to where energy should enter the production function," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 2832-2841.
    9. Hoy, Kyle A. & Wrenn, Douglas H., 2018. "Unconventional energy, taxation, and interstate welfare: An analysis of Pennsylvania's severance tax policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 53-65.
    10. Harald Badinger & Fritz Breuss, 2004. "Has Austria's Accession to the EU Triggered an Increase in Competition? A Sectoral Markup Study," WIFO Working Papers 220, WIFO.
    11. Hong, Junjie & Shi, Fangyuan & Zheng, Yuhan, 2023. "Does network infrastructure construction reduce energy intensity? Based on the “Broadband China” strategy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    12. Istemi Berk & Hakan Yetkiner, 2024. "Determinants of Energy Use in Turkish Manufacturing Industry: A Supply Side View," World Journal of Applied Economics, WERI-World Economic Research Institute, vol. 10(2), pages 55-71, December.
    13. Andrei Polbin & Sergey Drobyshevsky, 2014. "Developing a Dynamic Stochastic Model of General Equilibrium for the Russian Economy," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 166P, pages 156-156.
    14. Jackie Krafft & Francesco Quatraro, 2011. "The Dynamics of Technological Knowledge: From Linearity to Recombination," Chapters, in: Cristiano Antonelli (ed.), Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Ariel Pakes & Zvi Griliches, 1980. "Patents and R and D at the Firm Level: A First Look," NBER Working Papers 0561, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Fuller, Frank H., 1999. "Farm-Level Feed Demand In Turkey," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21534, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    17. Madan Dhanora & Ruchi Sharma & Walter G. Park, 2021. "Technological Innovations and Market Power: A Study of Indian Pharmaceutical Industry," Millennial Asia, , vol. 12(1), pages 5-34, April.
    18. Slade, Margaret E., 1999. "Sticky prices in a dynamic oligopoly: An investigation of (s,S) thresholds," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 477-511, May.
    19. Munisamy Gopinath & Daniel Pick & Thomas Worth, 2002. "Price Variability and Industrial Concentration in U.S. Food Industries," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 589-606, November.
    20. Alexander L. Wolman, 2007. "The frequency and costs of individual price adjustment," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 531-552.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberch:7786. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.