IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3378.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price Indexes for Microcomputers: An Exploratory Study

Author

Listed:
  • Ernst R. Berndt
  • Zvi Griliches

Abstract

In this paper we focus on alternative procedures for calculating and interpreting quality-adjusted price indexes for microcomputers, based on a variety of estimated hedonic price equations. Our data set comprises an unbalanced panel for 1265 model observations from 1982 to 1988, and includes both list and discount prices. We develop and implement empirically a specification test for selecting preferable hedonic price equations, and consider in detail the alternative interpretations of dummy variable coefficients having time and age, vintage and age, and all of the time, age, and vintage dummy variables as regressors. We then calculate a variety of quality-adjusted price indexes; for the Divisja indexes we employ estimated hedonic price equations to predict prices of unobserved models (pre-entry and post-exit). Although our indexes show a modest amount of variation, we find that on average over the 1982-88 time period in the US, quality-adjusted real prices for microcomputers decline at about 28% per year.

Suggested Citation

  • Ernst R. Berndt & Zvi Griliches, 1990. "Price Indexes for Microcomputers: An Exploratory Study," NBER Working Papers 3378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3378
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3378.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226304557 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Makoto Ohta & Zvi Griliches, 1976. "Automobile Prices Revisited: Extensions of the Hedonic Hypothesis," NBER Chapters, in: Household Production and Consumption, pages 325-398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Epple, Dennis, 1987. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Estimating Demand and Supply Functions for Differentiated Products," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 59-80, February.
    4. Nestor E. Terleckyj, 1976. "Household Production and Consumption," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number terl76-1, March.
    5. Robert J. Gordon, 1987. "The Postwar Evolution of Computer Prices," NBER Working Papers 2227, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. 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..
    7. Robert J. Gordon, 1990. "The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord90-1, March.
    8. Michaels, Robert, 1979. "Hedonic Prices and the Structure of the Digital Computer Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 263-275, March.
    9. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ramírez Muñoz de Toro, Gonzalo R. & Uriarte, Juan I. & Delbianco, Fernando & Larrosa, Juan M.C., 2017. "Un modelo hedónico de precios en línea de automóviles usados en Argentina || A Hedonic Model of Online Prices of Used Cars in Argentina," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 24(1), pages 25-53, Diciembre.
    2. Daniel M. G. Raff & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1996. "Quality-Adjusted Prices for the American Automobile Industry: 1906-1940," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of New Goods, pages 71-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Ernst R. Berndt & Zvi Griliches & Neal Rappaport, 1993. "Econometric Estimates of Prices Indexes for Personal Computers in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 4549, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Renato Fonseca, 2015. "Quality Change in Brazilian Automobiles," Discussion Papers 0066, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA.
    6. Villalonga, Belen, 2004. "Intangible resources, Tobin's q, and sustainability of performance differences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 205-230, June.
    7. Richard G. Newell & Adam B. Jaffe & Robert N. Stavins, 1999. "The Induced Innovation Hypothesis and Energy-Saving Technological Change," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 941-975.
    8. Ko, Kate, 2009. "Home Prices and Urban Corridors," 50th Annual Transportation Research Forum, Portland, Oregon, March 16-18, 2009 207607, Transportation Research Forum.
    9. Frank F. Limehouse & Peter C. Melvin & Robert E. McCormick, 2010. "The Demand for Environmental Quality: An Application of Hedonic Pricing in Golf," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 261-286, June.
    10. Christos Ioannidis & Mick Silver, 1999. "Estimating exact hedonic indexes: An application to UK television sets," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 69(1), pages 71-94, February.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Makoto Ohta, 1983. "Automobile Prices and Quality: Did the Gasoline Price Increase Change Consumer Tastes in the U.S.?," NBER Working Papers 1211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galicho & Marc Henry, 2014. "Entropy methods for identifying hedonic models," Working Papers 2014/21, Maastricht School of Management.
    15. repec:ags:aaea13:150001 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Catherine Beaudry, 2006. "Enterprise in orbit: The supply of communication satellites," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(7), pages 679-700.
    17. Toshihiro Okubo, 2013. "Energy-saving regulations and commodity prices," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 15(1), pages 93-132, January.
    18. Muriel Travers & Abdelhak Nassiri & Gildas Appéré & François Bonnieux, 2008. "Évaluation des bénéfices environnementaux par la méthode des prix hédonistes : une application au cas du littoral," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(4), pages 47-62.
    19. 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.
    20. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2001. "Quantifying Quality Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1006-1030, September.
    21. Bishop, Kelly C. & Timmins, Christopher, 2019. "Estimating the marginal willingness to pay function without instrumental variables," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 66-83.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
    • L - Industrial Organization

    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:nberwo:3378. 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.