Statistical Theory of Hedonic Price Indices

In the economic literature, essentially, hedonic techniques either are applied straightforwardly or the economic foundations of the hedonic hypothesis are discussed. In this paper, the statistical foundations of hedonic price indices are developed. After a short overview on well-known functional forms of hedonic equations, first, precise hedonic notions of a good and its price are specified. These specifications allow a clear-cut definition of true hedonic price indices. Then, the problem of estimating hedonic price indices is treated. It is shown, first, that the usual hedonic price index formulae result from estimating certain true indices in a special way and, second, that the techniques used in practice for estimating hedonic indices are just first approaches.