Call for Papers
The International Conference on Index Number
This
is a call for papers for a conference on the state of the art in index number
theory and on economic measurement more generally. Without a proper decomposition of values into price and quantity
components, it is not possible to measure the productivity of a sector of an
economy. Thus one of the main purposes
of the conference is to bring together academic economists, who are interested
in measurement problems, with research staff in national and international
statistical agencies in order to develop improved and practical methods for
measuring price and quantity change in industries where this has proved
difficult.
The
conference will be held on June 30-July 2, 2004 in Vancouver, British
Columbia. The program committee for the
conference consists of Erwin Diewert (University of British Columbia and
NBER/CRIW), John Greenlees (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and CRIW), Charles
Hulten (University of Maryland and NBER/CRIW), Bert M. Balk (Statistics Netherlands and Erasmus
University, Rotterdam), Dennis Fixler (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
and CRIW), Kevin Fox (University of New South Wales) and Alice Nakamura
(University of Alberta and CRIW).
The
program committee welcomes submissions of abstracts for consideration for
inclusion in the program. Examples of
possible topics are the following:
·
Measuring
the output of service sector industries that are conceptually difficult to
measure such as construction or auditing where the products may be one of a
kind.
·
Measuring
the output of networked commodities such as telecommunications.
·
How
to define prices for commodities that involve uncertainty or risk; e.g.,
insurance and gambling.
·
The
measurement of the outputs of the financial sector.
·
The
measurement of the price of owner occupied housing.
·
The
construction of price and quantity indexes that involve seasonal commodities.
·
Hedonic
regression techniques.
·
Cross
country or regional price and quantity comparisons.
·
The
treatment of consumer durables in consumer price indexes.
·
The
measurement of capital; e.g., what is the right user cost formula to use; how
can objective estimates of depreciation rates be obtained; how to deal with
situations where depreciation depends on the use of the asset (rather than just
its age)?
·
The
treatment of labor in productivity measurement.
·
The
measurement of productivity.
·
The
treatment of R&D both on the cost side as well as on the benefit side.
·
The
measurement of medical output.
·
The
measurement of mail output in the light of the internet.
·
The
measurement of entertainment output.
·
The
treatment of advertising.
·
The
measurement of the output in the nonprofit sector.
·
Stock
market indexes.
·
The
treatment of stock options in the national accounts.
·
The
measurement of household production and household welfare.
·
Alternative
approaches to index number theory.
·
The
use of scanner data in constructing price indexes.
·
Sampling
problems.
The above list of topics is meant to be illustrative. Any contribution that involves economic
measurement and that has specific implications for statistical agencies will be
considered. The organizers will also
consider surveys of any of the above areas.
Travel expenses (discount airfares, or contributions
toward the costs of travel otherwise) and up to 5 nights at the conference
hotel will be covered for paper presenters and discussants.
If you are interested in participating, please submit an abstract by October 30, 2003 to:
Professor Erwin Diewert,
Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada, V6T 1Z1 or by email: diewert@econ.ubc.ca
For those whose abstract is
accepted, a version of the full paper must
be submitted by March 1, 2004. The organizing committee will decide which
papers are to be presented and will also extend invitations to participate as
discussants to some of those whose papers are not accepted.