Hedonic Regressions and the Decomposition of a House Price index into Land and Structure Components

The paper uses hedonic regression techniques in order to decompose the price of a house into land and structure components using readily available real estate sales data for a Dutch city. In order to get sensible results, it was useful to use a nonlinear regression model using data that covered multiple time periods. It also proved to be necessary to impose some restrictions on the price of structures. The resulting builder’s hedonic regression model was compared with the results for traditional logarithmic hedonic regression models.House price indexes, land and structure components, time dummy hedonic regressions, Fisher ideal indexes.

The Decomposition of a House Price index into Land and Structures Components: A Hedonic Regression Approach

The paper uses hedonic regression techniques in order to decompose the price of a house into land and structure components using readily available real estate sales data for a Dutch city. In order to get sensible results, it proved necessary to use a nonlinear regression model using data that covered multiple time periods. It also proved to be necessary to impose some monotonicity restrictions on the price of land and structures. The results of the additive model were compared with the results of a traditional logarithmic hedonic regression model.Property price indexes, hedonic regressions, repeat sales method, rolling year indexes, Fisher ideal indexes.

An Appraisal-Based Generalized Regression Estimator of House Price Change

Abstract: The house price index compiled by Statistics Netherlands relies on the Sale Price Appraisal Ratio (SPAR) method. The SPAR method combines selling prices with prior government assessments of properties. This paper outlines an alternative approach where the appraisals serve as auxiliary information in a generalized regression (GREG) framework. An application on Dutch data demonstrates that, although the GREG index series is much smoother than the ratio of sample means, it is very similar to the SPAR series. To explain this result we show that the SPAR index is an estimator of our more general GREG index and in practice almost as efficient

Reflecting on Living Labs as Multi-Stakeholder Collaborative Networks to Evaluate Technological Products for People Living with Dementia

Dementia is a growing societal challenge putting pressure on care systems across Europe. Providing supporting technology for people living with dementia, referring to both people with dementia and their caregivers, is an important strategy to alleviate pressure. In this paper, we present lessons learned from the Interreg NWE Project Certification-D, in which we evaluated technological products with people living with dementia, using a Living Lab approach. Living Labs were set up in five different countries to conduct field evaluations at the homes of people living with dementia. Via an open call products from small to medium enterprises across northwestern Europe were selected to be evaluated in the Living Labs. In this paper, we describe the setup of and reflection on Living Labs as multi-stakeholder collaboration networks to evaluate technological products in the context of dementia. We reflect on the experiences and insights from the Living Lab researchers to execute and operate the Living Labs in such a sensitive setting. Our findings show that Living Labs can be used to conduct field evaluations of products, that flexibility is required to adopt a Living Lab in various care settings with different stakeholder compositions and expertise, and that Living Lab researchers serve as both a linking pin and buffer between people living with dementia and companies and thereby support the adoption of technological products. We close the paper with a proposal of best practices to encourage inclusivity in, and scalability of, Living Labs in the context of dementia

Price Measurement Using Scanner Data: Time-Product Dummy Versus Time Dummy Hedonic Indexes

This paper compares two model-based multilateral price indexes: the time-product dummy (TPD) index and the time dummy hedonic (TDH) index, both estimated by expenditure-share weighted least squares regression. The TPD model can be viewed as the saturated version of the underlying TDH model, and we argue that the regression residuals are “distorted toward zero” due to overfitting. We decompose the ratio of the two indexes in terms of average regression residuals of the new and disappearing items. The decomposition aims to explain the conditions under which the TPD index suffers from quality-change bias or, more generally, lack-of-matching bias. An example using scanner data on packaged men's T-shirts illustrates our framework.Housing System

Reflecting on Living Labs as Multi-Stakeholder Collaborative Networks to Evaluate Technological Products for People Living with Dementia

Dementia is a growing societal challenge putting pressure on care systems across Europe. Providing supporting technology for people living with dementia, referring to both people with dementia and their caregivers, is an important strategy to alleviate pressure. In this paper, we present lessons learned from the Interreg NWE Project Certification-D, in which we evaluated technological products with people living with dementia, using a Living Lab approach. Living Labs were set up in five different countries to conduct field evaluations at the homes of people living with dementia. Via an open call products from small to medium enterprises across northwestern Europe were selected to be evaluated in the Living Labs. In this paper, we describe the setup of and reflection on Living Labs as multi-stakeholder collaboration networks to evaluate technological products in the context of dementia. We reflect on the experiences and insights from the Living Lab researchers to execute and operate the Living Labs in such a sensitive setting. Our findings show that Living Labs can be used to conduct field evaluations of products, that flexibility is required to adopt a Living Lab in various care settings with different stakeholder compositions and expertise, and that Living Lab researchers serve as both a linking pin and buffer between people living with dementia and companies and thereby support the adoption of technological products. We close the paper with a proposal of best practices to encourage inclusivity in, and scalability of, Living Labs in the context of dementia

Should germline genome editing be allowed?: The effect of treatment characteristics on public acceptability

STUDY QUESTION: To what extent do characteristics of germline genome editing (GGE) determine whether the general public supports permitting the clinical use of GGE? SUMMARY ANSWER: The risk that GGE would cause congenital abnormalities had the largest effect on support for allowing GGE, followed by effectiveness of GGE, while costs, the type of application (disease or enhancement) and the effect on child well-being had moderate effects. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Scientific progress on GGE has increased the urgency of resolving whether and when clinical application of GGE may be ethically acceptable. Various expert bodies have suggested that the treatment characteristics will be key in determining whether GGE is acceptable. For example, GGE with substantial risks (e.g. 15% chance of a major congenital abnormality) may be acceptable to prevent a severe disease but not to enhance non-medical characteristics or traits of an otherwise healthy embryo (e.g. eye colour or perhaps in the future more complex traits, such as intelligence). While experts have called for public engagement, it is unclear whether and how much the public acceptability of GGE is affected by the treatment characteristics proposed by experts. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: The vignette-based survey was disseminated in 2018 among 1857 members of the Dutch general public. An online research panel was used to recruit a sample representing the adult Dutch general public. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: A literature review identified the key treatment characteristics of GGE: the effect on the well-being of the future child, use for disease or enhancement, risks for the future child, effectiveness (here defined as the chance of a live birth, assuming that if the GGE was not successful, the embryo would not be transferred), cost and availability of alternative treatments/procedures to prevent the genetic disease or provide enhancement (i.e. preimplantation genetic testing (PGT)), respectively. For each treatment characteristic, 2-3 levels were defined to realistically represent GGE and its current alternatives, donor gametes and ICSI with PGT. Twelve vignettes were created by fractional factorial design. A multinominal logit model assessed how much each treatment characteristic affected participants' choices. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: The 1136 respondents (response rate 61%) were representative of the Dutch adult population in several demographics. Respondents were between 18 and 89 years of age. When no alternative treatment/procedure is available, the risk that GGE would cause (other) congenital abnormalities had the largest effect on whether the Dutch public supported allowing GGE (coefficient = -3.07), followed by effectiveness (coefficient = 2.03). Costs (covered by national insurance, coefficient = -1.14), the type of application (disease or enhancement; coefficient = -1.07), and the effect on child well-being (coefficient = 0.97) had similar effects on whether GGE should be allowed. If an alternative treatment/procedure (e.g. PGT) was available, participants were not categorically opposed to GGE, however, they were strongly opposed to using GGE for enhancement (coefficient = -3.37). The general acceptability of GGE was higher than participants' willingness to personally use it (P < 0.001). When participants considered whether they would personally use GGE, the type of application (disease or enhancement) was more important, whereas effectiveness and costs (covered by national insurance) were less important than when they considered whether GGE should be allowed. Participants who were male, younger and had lower incomes were more likely to allow GGE when no alternative treatment/procedure is available. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Some (e.g. ethnic, religious) minorities were not well represented. To limit complexity, not all characteristics of GGE could be included (e.g. out-of-pocket costs), therefore, the views gathered from the vignettes reflect only the choices presented to the respondents. The non-included characteristics could be connected to and alter the importance of the studied characteristics. This would affect how closely the reported coefficients reflect 'real-life' importance. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: This study is the first to quantify the substantial impact of GGE's effectiveness, costs (covered by national insurance), and effect on child well-being on whether the public considered GGE acceptable. In general, the participants were strikingly risk-averse, in that they weighed the risks of GGE more heavily than its benefits. Furthermore, although only a single study in one country, the results suggests that - if sufficiently safe and effective - the public may approve of using GGE (presumably combined with PGT) instead of solely PGT to prevent passing on a disease. The reported public views can serve as input for future consideration of the ethics and governance of GGE. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): Young Academy of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (UPS/RB/745), Alliance Grant of the Amsterdam Reproduction and Development Research Institute (2017-170116) and National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Programme. No competing interests. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: N/A