Hedonic price indexes for spreadsheets and an empirical test of the network externalities hypothesis

Neil Gandal
Additional contact information
Neil Gandal: Tel Aviv University

Industrial Organization from EconWPA

Abstract: In this paper, I first estimate hedonic price equations for computer spreadsheet programs, and then use the analysis to empirically test whether network externalities exist in this industry. The study shows that consumers are willing to pay a significant premium for spreadsheets that are compatible with the Lotus platform and for spreadsheets that offer links to external data bases, and a smaller premium for spreadsheets that offer local area network compatibility. These results support the hypothesis that the computer spreadsheet market exhibits network externalities. Finally, the quality-adjusted (real) price index of computer spreadsheets declined by approximately 15 percent per year from 1986-1991.

JEL-codes: L (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-net
Date: 1993-09-13
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/io/papers/9309/9309002.pdf (application/pdf)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/io/papers/9309/9309002.doc.gz (application/msword)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/io/papers/9309/9309002.ps.gz (application/postscript)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:9309002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Industrial Organization from EconWPA
Series data maintained by EconWPA ().