Benkovskis, K. & Woerz, J. (2014) “Lower import prices = 100% welfare gains? Not necessarily: don′t forget the impact of consumer taste and product quality“, VoxEU Organisation, 15 Ιουλίου.
Import price statistics may not be a reliable indicator of welfare gains. They must adequately reflect the fact that consumers value variety, and that consumer tastes and product quality change over time. This column evaluates existing findings, and introduces new results for the four largest EU economies – including evidence of higher consumer welfare gains than suggested by official import prices for the period from 1995 to 2012.
Official price statistics, which mostly reflect price surveys of importers, rely on the so-called overlap method to adjust price observations for changing product baskets. The implicit assumption is that price differences between old and new products entirely reflect differences in quality. Many problems remain: officially reported import prices, even when adjusted for quality, measure changes in the price for one unit of a product, while welfare analysis looks into the price per unit of unobserved utility.
Σχετικές αναρτήσεις:
- Chen et al. (2014) “Globalisation and the Future of the Welfare State“, Institute for the Study of Labor, IZA Policy Paper No. 81, Μάρτιος.
- Diamond, P. & Lodge, G. (2013) “European welfare states after the crisis“, Policy Network Paper.
- Sakellaropoulos, T. (2012) “Debt Crisis and the Welfare State in Greece“, International Sociological Association (ISA), 12 Φεβρουαρίου.