Reconceiving Quality

Political Economy and the Rise of Hedonic Price Indexes

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7797341
AutoresThomas A Stapleford (0000-0002-5357-2542, University of Notre Dame, autor correspondente)
Ano2011
Volume43
Fascículosuppl_1
Páginas309-328
Data de publicação2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHistory of Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0018-2702 • E-ISSN: 1527-1919
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182702-1158772
OpenAlexW1980158031
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas15

Prior to the 1960s most American economists rejected hedonic techniques as a solution to the problem of quality change in price indexes. I argue that behind that judgment lay a deeper conceptual divide over how best to define and assess product quality: through expert testing or through market price differentials. Most American economists working on price indexes at the time had ties to the U.S. consumer movement, which emphasized consumer ignorance and promoted expert analysis as the only reliable guide to product quality. During the postwar era, these ties began to dissolve, and as younger economists more readily accepted the market as an arbiter of quality, they likewise saw the econometric analysis of prices and product characteristics as a logical and unproblematic tool for handling quality change in price indexes

Economics · Economy · Hedonic index · Ignorance · Microeconomics · Political science · Politics · Price index · Product (mathematics · Quality (philosophy · Economic Theory and Institutions · Law