Much of Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation for consumer durables reflects shifts to newer product models that display higher prices, not price increases for a given set of goods. I examine how these higher prices for new models should be divided between quality growth and price inflation based on (a) whether consumer purchases shift toward or away from the new models and (b) whether new-model price increases generate higher relative prices that persist through the model cycle. I conclude that two-thirds of the price increases with new models should be treated as quality growth. This implies that CPI inflation for durables has been overstated by almost 2 percentage points per year, with quality growth understated by the same magnitude.

In standard pricing models, movements in demand are partially offset by price responses. In a customer market, however, price markups may decrease with high demand. Thus, price may magnify, rather than stabilize, demand movements. I consider a monopolist selling a good of which first-time consumers are uncertain. Repeat customers know that the product works. The monopolist trades the objec-tives of exploiting past customers and attracting new ones. In a period with many new potential customers, the monopolist gives more weight to attracting and lowers its markup. Last, I examine some evidence on whether expansions are periods with disproportionately many new customers. I.

This paper examines the cyclical behavior of price/marginal cost margins for U.S. manufacturing. Short-run marginal cost is markedly procyclical. In most industries, output price fails to respond to the cyclical movement in marginal cost; so price/marginal cost margins are markedly countercyclical. My results contradict business cycle theories that explain low production in a recession by a high real cost of producing; they support theories that explain low production in a recession by the inability of firms to sell their output.

The author examines the cyclical behavior of price/marginal cost margins for U.S. manufac turing after 1956. Short-run marginal cost is markedly procyclical. This is primarily due to procyclical overtime payments, incurred beca use employment is not perfectly flexible. In most industries, output price fails to respond to the cyclical movement in marginal cost; so price/marginal cost margins are markedly countercyclical. The res ults contradict business cycle theories that explain low production i n a recession by a high real cost of producing; they support theories that explain low production in a recession by the inability of firms to sell their output. Copyright 1987 by American Economic Association.

We investigate whether a market‐clearing model is consistent with industry employment and wage patterns related to the cyclical upgrading of labor. We demonstrate that Roy's (1951) market‐clearing model of self‐selection would account for cyclical upgrading if industries were characterized by positive selection. Wage comparisons of industry movers and stayers in panel data do reveal widespread positive selection. Also consistent with the Roy model, composition‐corrected industry wages are more cyclical in high‐wage cyclical industries. The Roy model does fail to explain predictable patterns in the wage changes of industry movers, so we consider several market‐clearing and queuing extensions.

Using U.S. Consumer Expenditure Surveys, we estimate “quality Engel curves” for 66 durable goods based on the extent richer households pay more for each good. The same data show that the average price paid rises faster from 1980 to 1996 for goods with steeper quality Engel curves, as if households are ascending these curves. BLS prices likewise increase more quickly for goods with steeper quality Engel curves, suggesting the BLS does not fully net out the impact of quality upgrading. We estimate that annual quality growth averages 3.7 percent for our goods, with 2.2 percent showing up as higher inflation. (JEL D12, O40, E31)

The expansion of variety in consumer and intermediate goods plays a central role in many theoretical models of growth. Examples include Paul M. Romer (1990), Gene M. Grossman and Elhanan Helpman (1991 Ch. 3), and Robert J. Barro and Xavier Sala-i-Martin (1995 Ch. 6). In contrast, evidence on variety growth is very sparse. Jerry A. Hausman (1997) and Amil Petrin (1999) estimate the consumer gains to the introduction of specific brands of specific products (Apple-Cinnamon Cheerios and minivans, respectively). Similarly, Manuel Trajtenberg (1989) and Hausman (1999) estimate the gains from computed tomography (CT) scanners and cellular phones, respectively. However, quantifying the aggregate importance of new products on a good-by-good basis is probably not feasible. In particular, it is not possible to obtain data to estimate consumer surplus from the myriad of new models and features that are continually introduced. Reflecting these problems, the Boskin Commission (1996) offers only a few, often speculative, calculations in addressing the issue of variety gains. We take an indirect approach. We exploit how new varieties alter spending patterns, drawing expenditures away from comparatively dormant categories. Table 1 illustrates for a few cases of dramatic product innovations. As the table shows, rapid growth in spending on cable television since 1980 has fueled a broad increase in spending on television, despite a relative decline in spending on television sets. Similarly, VCR’s and movie rentals have spurred an increase in overall spending on movies at home and theaters, personal computers have brought about increased spending on home audio and video equipment, and cell phone services have been responsible for the increased spending on all telephone services. In the 20 years prior to the ascendance of these major new items, all of their categories were stagnant or in relative decline. More generally, we find that consumers have been rapidly shifting away from “static” categories (i.e., those in which there has been little variety or quality gain). This shift far exceeds what can be explained by the impact of relative Engel curves or relative price changes. Our results suggest that variety has increased by perhaps 1 percent per year over the past 40 years. More striking is that most of this growth occurs in just the past 20 years—explaining our title. Looking across 106 more detailed categories, we relate share changes to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) item-substitution rates. Itemsubstitution rates measure how often the BLS replaces an item in the pricing basket with another model because the former has disappeared from a sample outlet. Frequent BLS item substitutions predict increased spending on a category, even after controlling for Engel-curve, price, and demographic effects. This suggests that new varieties do increase spending on a category, as well as drive out or replace incumbent varieties. Compared to Engel curves, we find that item-substitution rates are a more reliable predictor of shifts in spending shares across goods. Related to this, we question Bruce W. Hamilton (1998) and Dora Costa’s (2000) reliance on food’s share and food’s Engel curve to measure the true rate of U.S. economic growth.

A number of economists find that growth and schooling are highly correlated across countries. A model is examined in which the ability to build on the human capital of one's elders plays an important role in linking growth to schooling. The model is calibrated to quantify the strength of the effect of schooling on growth by using evidence from the labor literature on Mincerian returns to education. The upshot is that the impact of schooling on growth explains less than one-third of the empirical cross-country relationship. The ability of reverse causality to explain this empirical relationship is also investigated. (JEL I2, J24, O4)