New Products, Quality Changes, and Welfare Measures Computed from Estimated Demand Systems
研究如何基于估计的需求系统构建价格指数，以反映新产品引入和现有产品质量变化。作者指出将需求估计转化为福利度量所需的关键假设，并用即食麦片品牌需求数据展示了这些假设的实际影响。
This paper examines the construction of a price index based on an estimated demand system. In principle the method examined can produce a price index that accounts for introduction of new products and quality changes in existing products. However, I isolate two key assumptions that have to be made in order to interpret the demand estimates into welfare measures. Using estimates of a brand-level demand system for ready-to-eat cereal I demonstrate the empirical importance of the assumptions. For the data I use, depending on the interpretation of the demand estimates, a price index can range between a 35% percent increase over the five years examined to a 2.4% decrease.