Price measurements and their uses

"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."--BOOK JACKET. "Half of the papers focus on prices for mainframe and personal computers, semiconductors, and other high-tech products, using mainly hedonic techniques. Some of the research in this volume suggests that prices for personal computers and semiconductors may have fallen even faster than the 14 percent annual rate of decrease indicated in the official statistics."--BOOK JACKET.^ "Not all economists agree with the approach to computer price measurement taken by the government agencies, and 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 ch