On the Double Imputation Hedonic Price Index1

In this short paper we present an empirical comparison of two price indexes: the 'consecutive two period chained time dummy double imputation hedonic price index' recently adopted by the ABS for their computer price index and the multi-period dummy variable hedonic price index that is commonly used in academic research. The comparison is conducted using a publicly available data set and indicates this new index is far more suited to goods, like automobiles, where models are replaced relatively infrequently rather than goods like computers where newly introduced models tend to dominate the data set.