To: flatsville who wrote (66585 ) 2/10/2001 12:11:54 PM From: Ilaine Read Replies (1) | Respond to No, my point is that you told Magner not to blame the BLS for using hedonic adjustment to pricing, it was the Senate Finance Committee who "let the hedonic genie out of the bottle" and that is not an accurate statement of facts. The BLS has been using hedonic adjustment to pricing and exploring the further use of hedonic adjustment to pricing since the late 1980's - early 1990's. statice.is dsl.nber.org :81/~confer/2000/si2000/berndt.pdfbls.gov The advisory commission report did not contain an explicit recommendation concerning the use of hedonic regressions, but the commission members later emphasized their support for increased use of this approach to quality adjustment.14 This is, in fact, a critical element of BLS current practice and future plans. For several years, hedonic quality adjustments have been used in the CPI apparel and rent indexes. Starting in January 1998, the hedonic model developed and used in the Producer Price Index for adjusting computer prices has been employed in the Personal Computers and Peripheral Equipment category of the CPI. New hedonic research is underway on video and audio equipment data. Most importantly, funds have been requested to support ongoing collection of product price and characteristic data, focused on consumer durable items. It is expected that this information will enable the BLS to expand significantly the use of hedonic quality adjustment methods in future years. bls.gov
