Estimating Future Consumer Welfare Gains from Innovation: The Case of Digital Data Storage

David Austin () and Molly Macauley

No 10814, Discussion Papers from Resources for the Future

Abstract: We develop a quality-adjusted cost index to estimate expected returns to investments in new technologies. The index addresses the problem of measuring social benefits from innovations in service sector inputs, where real output is not directly observable. We forecast welfare gains from two U.S. Advanced Technology Program innovations equaling 25%-50% of expected price, and aggregate consumer benefits of $1-$2 billion, relative to trends in existing technologies. Our model's probabilistic parameters reflect uncertainty about prospective outcomes and in our hedonic estimates of shadow values for selected product attributes. The index can be readily adopted by research and development (R&D) managers in industry and government.

Keywords: Research; and; Development/Tech; Change/Emerging; Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54
Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/10814/files/dp000013.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Estimating Future Consumer Welfare Gains from Innovation: The Case of Digital Data Storage (2000)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:rffdps:10814

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.10814

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().