TY  - JOUR
AU  - Berry,Steven
AU  - Kortum,Samuel
AU  - Pakes,Ariel
TI  - Environmental Change and Hedonic Cost Functions for Automobiles
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5746
PY  - 1996
Y2  - September 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5746
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5746.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Steven T. Berry
Yale University Department of Economics
Box 208264
37 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06520-8264
Tel: 203/432-3556
Fax: 203/432-6323
E-Mail: steven.berry@yale.edu

Samuel S. Kortum
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/702-8251
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: kortum@uchicago.edu

Ariel Pakes
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Room 117
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-5320
Fax: 617/496-7352
E-Mail: apakes@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - This paper focuses on how changes in the economic and regulatory environment have affected production costs and product characteristics in the automobile industry.  We estimate cost functions characteristics.   Then we examine how this cost surface has changed over time and how these changes relate to changes in gas prices and in emission standard regulations.  We also briefly consider the related questions of how changes in automobile characteristics, and in the rate of patenting, are related to regulations and gas prices.
ER  -