Application of the Hedonic Method: The Example of Russian Market of Household Appliances

Vadim Ye. Zyamalov – Researcher of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Marina Yu. Turuntseva – Head of Macroeconomic Forecasting Department of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Head of Short-term Forecasting Department of the Gaidar Institute, Candidate of Economic Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Since the late 80s, a method designed to consider the fact that the quality of goods on the market is not constant has been introduced into the practice of foreign statistical agencies. The hedonic method, which finally took shape in the work of Zvi Griliches, is designed to take these changes in quality into account. A large body of work has been done to show the presence of index bias caused by hedonic effects.

Using the example of TVs, this paper provides an illustration of the hedonic method on the Russian market of household appliances. The research based on the data by Yandex.Market portal showed the principal applicability of the method for the Russian market.

The article was written based on the RANEPA state assignment research programme.

Key words: price indices, characteristics of quality, hedonic method.