Price Measurements and Their Uses

edited by Murray F. Foss, Marilyn E. Manser and Allan H. Young

University of Chicago Press, 1993
Cloth: 978-0-226-25730-3 | Electronic: 978-0-226-25732-7
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226257327.001.0001

AVAILABLE FROM

University of Chicago Press (cloth, ebook)
Amazon Kindle (PDF)
Barnes & Noble Nook
Chegg Inc
DeGruyter Multi-User Ebook Program
ebrary
EBSCO eBooks (formerly NetLibrary)
Google Play
Kno

ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In an economy characterized by frequent change in technology, in the types of goods and services purchased, and in the forms of business organization, keeping track of price change continues to pose many difficulties. Price change affects the way we perceive changes in such basic measures as real output, productivity, and living standards. This volume, which brings together academic economists with those responsible for official price indexes, presents outstanding new research on price measurement.

Half of the papers focus on prices for mainframe and personal computers, semiconductors, and other high-tech products, using mainly hedonic techniques. The volume includes a panel discussion by distinguished economists about the theoretical and practical considerations of how best to measure price change of capital goods whose quality is changing rapidly. The authors also present new research on more conventional but still unsettled problems in the price field affecting both the consumer and producer price indexes of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Murray F. Foss is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Marilyn E. Manser is assistant commissioner for economic research at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Allan H. Young is chief statistician at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Prefatory Note

Introduction

I. High-Tech Products: Computers

1. Constant-Quality Price Change, Depreciation, and Retirement of Mainframe Computers

2. Price Indexes for Microcomputers: An Exploratory Study

II. High-Tech Products: Semiconductors

3. Sources of Price Decline in Computer Processors: Selected Electronic Components

4. Cost Function Estimation of Quality Change in Semiconductors

5. Measurement of DRAM Prices: Technology and Market Structure

III. Quality-Change Issues in Consumer Prices

6. Adjusting Apparel Indexes in the Consumer Price Index for Quality Differences

7. The Effect of Outlet Price Differentials on the U.S. Consumer Price Index

IV. Transaction Prices

8. The Problem of List Prices in the Producer Price Index: The Steel Mill Products Case

9. Does Government Regulation Inhibit the Reporting of Transactions Prices by Business?

V. Price Indexes for Defense

10. The Deflation of Military Aircraft

VI. BEA’s Treatment of Computer Prices and Productivity Measurement

11. Panel Discussion: Implications of BEA’s Treatment of Computer Prices and Productivity Measurement

Contributors

Author Index

Subject Index