IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedmqr/y2003iwinp10-23nv.27no.1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring consumption growth: the impact of new and better products

Author

Listed:
  • Peter J. Klenow

Abstract

This study describes how the U.S. government measures real consumption growth and how it tries to take account of a complicating factor: that the goods and services offered to consumers change over time; new products are introduced and old products are improved. The 1996 Boskin Commission critique of this government methodology is described, along with the changes made in response to that critique. Also described is recent research related to how real consumption growth should be measured in the presence of new and better products.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter J. Klenow, 2003. "Measuring consumption growth: the impact of new and better products," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 27(Win), pages 10-23.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmqr:y:2003:i:win:p:10-23:n:v.27no.1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/common/pub_detail.cfm?pb_autonum_id=964
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/QR/QR2712.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brent R. Moulton & Karin E. Moses, 1997. "Addressing the Quality Change Issue in the Consumer Price Index," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1), pages 305-366.
    2. Robert B. Barsky & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta & Daniel Levy, 2003. "What Can the Price Gap between Branded and Private-Label Products Tell Us about Markups?," NBER Chapters, in: Scanner Data and Price Indexes, pages 165-225, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Robert J. Gordon, 2000. "The Boskin Commission Report and its Aftermath," NBER Working Papers 7759, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Matthew D. Shapiro & Irving Shapiro & David W. Wilcox, 1999. "Quality Improvement in Health Care: A Framework for Price and Output Measurement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 333-337, May.
    5. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou, 1996. "Dealer Price Discrimination in New Car Purchases: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 622-654, June.
    6. Gort, Michael & Klepper, Steven, 1982. "Time Paths in the Diffusion of Product Innovations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(367), pages 630-653, September.
    7. Ernst R. Berndt & Robert S. Pindyck & Pierre Azoulay, 2003. "Consumption Externalities and Diffusion in Pharmaceutical Markets: Antiulcer Drugs," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 243-270, June.
    8. Goolsbee, Austan & Klenow, Peter J, 2002. "Evidence on Learning and Network Externalities in the Diffusion of Home Computers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(2), pages 317-343, October.
    9. Amil Petrin, 2002. "Quantifying the Benefits of New Products: The Case of the Minivan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 705-729, August.
    10. Matthew D. Shapiro & David W. Wilcox, 1996. "Mismeasurement in the Consumer Price Index: An Evaluation," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 93-154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. David E. Lebow & Jeremy B. Rudd, 2001. "Measurement error in the consumer price index: where do we stand?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-61, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Bruce W. Hamilton, 2001. "Using Engel's Law to Estimate CPI Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 619-630, June.
    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. Ariel Burstein & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2005. "Large Devaluations and the Real Exchange Rate," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 742-784, August.
    2. Bruce Sacerdote, 2017. "Fifty Years Of Growth In American Consumption, Income, And Wages," NBER Working Papers 23292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Abe, Naohito & Inakura, Noriko & Tonogi, Akiyuki, 2017. "Effects of the Entry and Exit of Products on Price Indexes," RCESR Discussion Paper Series DP17-2, Research Center for Economic and Social Risks, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    4. David McKenzie & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2005. "Buying Less, But Shopping More: Changes In Consumption Patterns During A Crisis," Business School Working Papers buyinglessshop, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    5. Scanlon, Paul, 2019. "New goods and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 140-157.
    6. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2004. "The size distribution of firms in an economy with fixed and entry costs," Working Papers 633, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Nguyen, Thang, 2005. "Separating Quantity Shock and Quality Innovation in Relative Prices," MPRA Paper 225, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 May 2006.
    8. Henning Ahnert & Geoff Kenny, 2004. "Quality adjustment of European price statistics and the role for hedonics," Occasional Paper Series 15, European Central Bank.
    9. Alain Bensoussan & Jussi Keppo & Suresh P. Sethi, 2009. "Optimal Consumption And Portfolio Decisions With Partially Observed Real Prices," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 215-236, April.

    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. Robert J. Gordon, 2000. "The Boskin Commission Report and its Aftermath," NBER Working Papers 7759, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2001. "Quantifying Quality Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1006-1030, September.
    3. Kitamura, Hiroshi & Miyaoka, Akira & Sato, Misato, 2013. "Free entry, market diffusion, and social inefficiency with endogenously growing demand," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 98-116.
    4. Robert J. Gordon, 2006. "The Boskin Commission Report: A Retrospective One Decade Later," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 12, pages 7-22, Spring.
    5. Todd D. Gerarden & Richard G. Newell & Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Gap," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1486-1525, December.
    6. Feng, Yao, 2011. "Local spillovers and learning from neighbors: Evidence from durable adoptions in rural China," MPRA Paper 33924, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Peter J. Klenow & Oleksiy Kryvtsov, 2008. "State-Dependent or Time-Dependent Pricing: Does it Matter for Recent U.S. Inflation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 863-904.
    8. Ernst R. Berndt & David M. Cutler & Richard Frank & Zvi Griliches & Joseph P. Newhouse & Jack E. Triplett, 2001. "Price Indexes for Medical Care Goods and Services -- An Overview of Measurement Issues," NBER Chapters, in: Medical Care Output and Productivity, pages 141-200, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Paul Scanlon, 2018. "Why Do People Work So Hard?," 2018 Meeting Papers 1206, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson & Miao Liu, 2016. "Are Chinese Growth and Inflation Too Smooth? Evidence from Engel Curves," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 113-144, July.
    11. Hoffmann, Johannes, 1998. "Problems of inflation measurement in Germany," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1998,01e, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    12. Irac, D., 2008. "Access to new imported varieties and total factor productivity: Firm level evidence from France," Working papers 204, Banque de France.
    13. Marshall Reinsdorf & Jack E. Triplett, 2009. "A Review of Reviews: Ninety Years of Professional Thinking About the Consumer Price Index," NBER Chapters, in: Price Index Concepts and Measurement, pages 17-83, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Guofang Huang, 2020. "When to haggle, when to hold firm? Lessons from the used‐car retail market," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 579-604, July.
    15. Xue Song & William D. Marder & Robert Houchens & Jonathan E. Conklin & Ralph Bradley, 2009. "Can A Disease-Based Price Index Improve the Estimation of the Medical Consumer Price Index?," NBER Chapters, in: Price Index Concepts and Measurement, pages 329-368, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2010. "Product Creation and Destruction: Evidence and Price Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 691-723, June.
    17. Doms, Mark & Forman, Chris, 2005. "Prices for local area network equipment," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 365-388, July.
    18. Rong, Zhao, 2011. "Free riding and durable adoption: a test of color television consumption in rural China," MPRA Paper 33434, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Ambrose, Brent W. & Coulson, N. Edward & Yoshida, Jiro, 2017. "Inflation Rates Are Very Different When Housing Rents Are Accurately Measured," HIT-REFINED Working Paper Series 71, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    20. Yavuz Arslan & Evren Ceritoglu, 2011. "Kalite Artislari ve Enflasyon : Turkiye Ornegi," Central Bank Review, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption (Economics);

    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:fip:fedmqr:y:2003:i:win:p:10-23:n:v.27no.1. 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: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.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.