Faster, Smaller, Cheaper: An Hedonic Price Analysis of PDAs

We compute quality-adjusted price indexes for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) for the period 1999-2004, using data on prices and characteristics of 203 models sold by 12 manufacturers. The PDA market is growing in size, it is technologically dynamic with very substantial changes in measured characteristics over time, and it has experienced rapid rates of product introduction. Hedonic regressions consistently show prices to be positively related to processor performance, RAM memory, permanent storage capacity, and battery life, as well as several measures of screen size and quality. Features such as networking, biometric identification, camera, and cellphone capability are also positively associated with price. Hedonic price indexes implied by these regressions decline at an AAGR of 21.1% to 25.6% per year during this period. A matched model price index computed from a subset of observations declines at 18.75% per year. Though these PDA rates of price decline are lower than have been estimated for desktop and laptop PCs, consumers in this "ultra-portable" segment of the computer market appear to have enjoyed substantial welfare gains over the past five years.

The relationship between baseline Organizational Readiness to Change Assessment subscale scores and implementation of hepatitis prevention services in substance use disorders treatment clinics: a case study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Organizational Readiness to Change Assessment (ORCA) is a measure of organizational readiness for implementing practice change in healthcare settings that is organized based on the core elements and sub-elements of the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARIHS) framework. General support for the reliability and factor structure of the ORCA has been reported. However, no published study has examined the utility of the ORCA in a clinical setting. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between baseline ORCA scores and implementation of hepatitis prevention services in substance use disorders (SUD) clinics.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Nine clinic teams from Veterans Health Administration SUD clinics across the United States participated in a six-month training program to promote evidence-based practices for hepatitis prevention. A representative from each team completed the ORCA evidence and context subscales at baseline.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eight of nine clinics reported implementation of at least one new hepatitis prevention practice after completing the six-month training program. Clinic teams were categorized by level of implementation-high (n = 4) versus low (n = 5)-based on how many hepatitis prevention practices were integrated into their clinics after completing the training program. High implementation teams had significantly higher scores on the patient experience and leadership culture subscales of the ORCA compared to low implementation teams. While not reaching significance in this small sample, high implementation clinics also had higher scores on the research, clinical experience, staff culture, leadership behavior, and measurement subscales as compared to low implementation clinics.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results of this study suggest that the ORCA was able to measure differences in organizational factors at baseline between clinics that reported high and low implementation of practice recommendations at follow-up. This supports the use of the ORCA to describe factors related to implementing practice recommendations in clinical settings. Future research utilizing larger sample sizes will be essential to support these preliminary findings.</p

Hedonic approaches to measuring price and quality change in personal computer systems

Although computers have long been studied in terms of their changing price/performance ratio, the issue of accounting for performance in computer systems has not been adequately addressed. This paper addresses the topic in three ways. First, a survey of IS Managers and business "power-users" of personal computers was conducted to empirically determine the attributes of computer systems that provide value to users; these results guide subsequent choices regarding the operationalisation of user value. Second, an index of system performance was developed from published performance benchmarks and used as a direct measure of performance in the hedonic function. Third, a set of technical proxies was shown to adequately reproduce the performance index derived above, and was used in an alternate specification of the hedonic function. Using data on IBM-PC compatible laptop and desktop systems, price indexes were constructed using both approaches to performance measurement. The results demonstrated that both approaches yielded good explanatory power and nearly identical estimates of the rate of quality adjusted price change in PC systems. Thus, the set of technical proxies could be used to operationalise performance in a larger data set for which direct performance measures are unavailable. For the 1990s, laptop PCs were found to have decreased in quality adjusted price at an average of 39% per year while the corresponding figure for desktop PCs was 35% per year.Business, Sauder School ofGraduat

The Development of a Hedonic Price Index for Personal Computers with Applications to Information Technology Productivity Research

Recent work, using the firm as the level of analysis, has applied econometric methods to assess the payoff to spending on information technology ( Berndt and Morrison, 1995; Brynjolfsson and Hitt, 1993, 1995, 1996; Lehr and Lichtenberg, 1997; Lichtenberg, 1995; Loveman, 1994; Morrison and Berndt, 1991; Sabyasachi and Chaya, 1996; Weill, 1990; Weill, 1992). One component to performing such an analysis is the application of an appropriate price index that accounts for quality change over time in the inputs to production, in this case, information technology. Currently, there are no valid price indexes for IT. The often-cited works of Brynjolfsson and Hitt were forced to rely on a price index ( Gordon, 1990) that was both out-of-date (ending four years before their data begins) and developed for a different type of computer (mainframe), because this index was the best available. Despite the increasing importance of microcomputers to business, an appropriately specified price index covering the microcomputer has yet to be developed

Approaches to performance measurement in hedonic analysis: Price indexes for laptop computers in the 1990's

This paper estimates price indexes for laptop personal computers using hedonic methods and data taken from PC Magazine technical reviews. We use benchmark test results to construct a measure of system performance that encapsulates factors that have previously gone unmeasured, such as the interactions between hardware components. The resulting hedonic function is parsimonious yet has good explanatory power. A second approach to performance measurement is developed using a set of technical proxies that are shown to closely approximate the benchmark test scores, and are thus nearly perfectly equivalent in terms of resulting price index estimates. While not as parsimonious as a single performance measure, these proxies have the advantage of not requiring direct performance testing, and could thus be applied to larger data sets. Laptops were found to have declined in quality-adjusted price at an average rate of 40% per year for the period 1990-1998.Hedonics, Price Indexes, Personal Computers, Computer Performance,

Clicks vs. Bricks: Toward a Model of Internet-Induced Channel Competition

The overall objective of this program of research is to develop a model of Internet-induced channel competition. In this paper, we focus on the ways in which retail channel technology—specifically, the online vs. bricks and mortar stores—affects the feasible trade-offs that firms can make between price and desirable attributes of their product/service bundles. This paper treats products as a bundle of the physical good and the fulfillment or transaction technology, and proposes a model of competition in the price-attribute space to illustrate the tradeoffs for consumers and producers. This model is grounded in demand, production, and hedonic theory, and relates the attributes (or “quality”) of products to their observed prices. Our objectives in future research are to refine the analytical model and to find evidence that (1) the functional forms assumed in the model are consistent with the price/attribute trade-offs observed in practice and (2) the observed competitive responses of firms dominated by online competitors are consistent with those prescribed by our model

Research report: Empirical test of an EDI adoption model

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