Measuring Capital

The paper revisits Harper, Berndt and Wood (1989) and calculates Canadian reproducible capital services aggregates under alternative assumptions about the form of depreciation, the opportunity cost of capital and the treatment of capital gains. Five different models of depreciation are considered: (1) one hoss shay; (2) straight line depreciation; (3) declining balance or geometric depreciation; (4) linearly declining efficiency profiles and (5) linearly increasing maintenance profiles. The latter form of depreciation does not seem to have been considered in the literature before. This model assumes that there is a known time profile of maintenance expenditures that can be associated with each asset and the optimal time of retirement of the asset as well as the profile of used asset prices becomes endogenous under this specification. It turns out if the maintenance profile increases linearly, then the linearly declining efficiency profile model emerges; see (4) above. We consider 3 alternative assumptions about the interest rate and the treatment of capital gains so that we evaluate 15 models in all and compare their differences. Following Hill (2000), we also consider the differences between cross section and time series depreciation and anticipated time series depreciation (which adds anticipated obsolescence of the asset to normal cross section depreciation of the asset). Finally, we follow the suggestion made by Diewert and Lawrence (2000) that a superlative index number formula be used to aggregate up vintages of capital rather than the usual assumption of linear aggregation, which implicitly assumes that the capital services yielded by each vintage of a homogeneous type of capital are perfectly substitutable.

Alternative strategies for aggregating prices in the CPI - commentary

Consumer price indexes ; Prices

Depreciation, Deterioration and Obsolescence when there is Embodied or Disembodied Technical Change

The paper considers how to measure capital in a model where technical progress is either embodied in new units of capital or it is "disembodied" and simply causes the price of capital services to fall. The disembodied case is considered in sections 2-4. Sections 2 and 3 set out standard vintage capital aggregation models when there is no embodied technical progress. Section 4 discusses disembodied obsolescence in more detail. Section 5 introduces new (more efficient) models of the capital good so that technical progress is embodied in the new models. Section 6 shows how the parameters in the Jorgenson model of capital services could be estimated by statistical agencies if their investment surveys covered sales and retirements of used assets as well as purchases of new assets. Section 7 concludes.Aggregation of Capital, embodiment of technical progress, depreciation, deterioration, obsolescence, index number theory

Accounting for housing in a CPI

In this paper, we take stock of how statistical agencies in different nations are currently accounting for housing in their consumer price indexes (CPIs). The rental equivalence and user cost approaches have been favourites of economists. Both can be derived from the fundamental equation of capital theory. Concerns about these approaches are taken up. We go on to argue that an opportunity cost approach is the correct theoretical framework for accounting for owner-occupied housing (OOH) in a CPI. This approach, first mentioned in a 2006 OECD paper by Diewert, is developed more fully here. We explore the relationship of this new approach to the usual rental equivalency and user cost approaches. The new approach leads to an owner-occupied housing opportunity cost (OOHOC) index that is a weighted average of the rental and the financial opportunity costs. ; We call attention to the need for more direct measures of inflation for owner-occupied housing services. In a 2007 paper, Mishkin argues that central banks with supervisory authority can reduce the likelihood of bubbles forming through prudential supervision of the financial system. However, the official mandates of central banks typically focus on managing measured inflation. Barack Obama has pledged to give the Federal Reserve greater oversight of a broader array of financial institutions. We believe that an important addition to this pledge should be to give the BLS, BEA, and Census Bureau the funds and the mandate to aggressively develop improved measures of inflation for owner-occupied housing services. Central banks and national governments have many policy instruments at their disposal that they could use, in the future, to control inflation in housing markets. What they lack are appropriate measures of inflation in the market for owner-occupied housing services. The proposed new opportunity cost measure for accounting for OOH in a CPI will not be simple or cheap to implement. However, the current financial crisis makes it clear that the costs of not having an adequate measure for inflation in the cost of owner-occupied housing services can be far greater.Durable goods, Consumer ; Consumer price indexes ; Cost of living adjustments ; Housing

Introduction to Measurement with Theory.

This paper is the introduction to the forthcoming Macroeconomic Dynamics Special Issue on Measurement with Theory. The Guest Editors of the special issue are William A. Barnett, W. Erwin Diewert, Shigeru Iwata, and Arnold Zellner. The authors of this detailed introduction and commentary are William A. Barnett, W. Erwin Diewert, and Arnold Zellner. The included papers are part of a larger initiative to promote measurement with theory in economics.Measurement; index number theory; aggregation theory.