IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/7134.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price Indexes for PC Database Software and the Value of Code Compatibility

Author

Listed:
  • Harhoff, Dietmar
  • Moch, Dietmar

Abstract

Changing product quality poses a challenge for the computation of price indexes, in particular in technologically advanced industries. We assess the differences between traditional and quality-corrected indexes by computing hedonic and matched-model price indexes for personal computer database software. Our database covers the price development in Germany from 1986 to 1994. Quality-adjusted software prices decline by 7.4 percent according to our hedonic index. Surprisingly, a matchedmodel index based on linking the prices of directly comparable program versions decreases even faster than the hedonic index (9.3 percent). This unusual result is apparently caused by the simultaneous selling of old and new versions of a given software product. The estimation results also confirm the importance of network effects. Code compatibility, i.e. the capability of executing programs written for the dominant database product, yields a significant price premium. The ability to read and write data in the dominant spreadsheet format (file compatibility) is also associated with higher prices, but the price differential is much smaller than in the case of code compatibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Harhoff, Dietmar & Moch, Dietmar, 1996. "Price Indexes for PC Database Software and the Value of Code Compatibility," ZEW Discussion Papers 96-17, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:7134
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/24689/1/dp1796.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Chwelos, 2003. "Approaches to performance measurement in hedonic analysis: Price indexes for laptop computers in the 1990's," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 199-224.
    2. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2004:i:1:p:1-9 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Abdur Chowdhury, 2003. "Information technology and productivity payoff in the banking industry: evidence from the emerging markets," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(6), pages 693-708.
    4. Brachinger, Hans Wolfgang, 2002. "Statistical Theory of Hedonic Price Indices," DQE Working Papers 1, Department of Quantitative Economics, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland, revised Aug 2003.
    5. Moch, Dietmar, 2001. "Price indices for information and communication technology industries: an application to the German PC market," ZEW Discussion Papers 01-20, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    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:zbw:zewdip:7134. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.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.