Do higher prices for new goods reflect quality growth or inflation?

Quarterly Journal of Economics

Volumn 124, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 637-675

  Bils, Mark ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67650135866     PISSN: 00335533     EISSN: 15314650     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.2.637     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. Adelman, Irma, and Zvi Griliches, "On an Index of Quality Change," Journal of the American Statistical Association, 56 (1961), 535-548.
2. Anderson, Simon P., André de Palma, and Jacques-Francois Thisse, Discrete Choice Theory of Product Differentiation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).
3. Armknecht, Paul A., Walter F. Lane, and Kenneth J. Stewart, "New Products and the U.S. Consumer Price Index," in The Economics of New Goods, Timothy F. Bresnahan and Robert J. Gordon, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
4. Armknecht, Paul A., and Donald Weyback, "Adjustments for Quality in the U.S. Consumer Price Index," Journal of Official Statistics, 5 (1989), 107-123.
5. Bils, Mark, "Measuring Growth from Better and Better Goods," NBER Working Paper No. 10606, 2004.
6. Boskin Commission Report (1996), Toward a More Accurate Measure of the Cost of Living, Final Report to the Senate Finance Committee from the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index, 1996. Available online at http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/boskinrpt.html.
7. Corrado, Carol, Wendy Dunn, and Maria Otoo, "Incentives and Prices for Motor Vehicles: What Has Been Happening in Recent Years?" Federal Reserve Board, Divisions of Research & Statistics and Monetary Affairs, FEDS Paper 2006-09, 2006.
8. Griliches, Zvi, "Hedonic Price Indexes for Automobiles: An Econometric Analysis of Quality Change," Price Statistics of the Federal Government, 73 (1961), 137-196.
9. Hausman, Jerry, "Sources of Bias and Solutions to Bias in the CPI," Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17 (2003), 23-44.
10. Lazear, Edward P., "Retail Pricing and Clearance Sales," American Economic Review, 76 (1986), 14-32.
11. Moulton, Brent R., and Karin E. Moses, "Addressing the Quality Change Issue in the Consumer Price Index," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, (1997) (1), 305-366.
12. Pakes, Ariel, "A Reconsideration of Hedonic Price Indexes with an Application to PC's," American Economic Review, 93 (2003), 1578-1596.
13. Shapiro, Matthew, and David Wilcox, "Mismeasurement in the Consumer Price Index: An Evaluation," NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, (1996), 93-142.
14. Triplett, Jack E., "Measuring Consumption: The Post-1973 Slowdown and the Research Issues," Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, (1997), 8-34.
15. U.S. Department of Labor, BLS Handbook of Methods, Bulletin 2490 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997).