Quality-Adjusted Price Measurement: A New Approach with Evidence from Semiconductors

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Byrne, David M.; Kovak, Brian K.; Michaels, Ryan
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors; Carnegie Mellon University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Philadelphia
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00640
• 发表日期: 2017-05
• 页码: 330-342
• 关键词: competition; GROWTH; COSTS

摘要

Many markets exhibit price dispersion across suppliers of observationally identical goods. Statistical agencies typically assume this dispersion reflects unobserved quality, so standard price indexes do not incorporate price declines when buyers substitute toward lower-price suppliers. We show that long-run price differences across suppliers can be used to infer unobserved quality differences and propose an index that accommodates quality-adjusted price dispersion. Using transaction-level data on contract semiconductor manufacturing, we document substantial quality-adjusted price dispersion and confirm that a standard index is biased above our proposed index.