Does Hedonic Price Indexing Change our Interpretation of Economic History? Evidence from Swedish Electrification

Rapid price decreases for ICT products in the 1990s have been largely attributed to the introduction of hedonic price indexes.Would hedonic price indexing also have had large effects on measured price and productivity during earlier technological breakthroughs? This article investigates the impact of hedonic and matched model methods on historical data for electric motors in Sweden from 1900–35. The results show rapidly decreasing prices in the industry producing electric motors in the 1920s. However, the price decreases of electric motors in the 1920s were not on a par with price decreases for ICT equipment in the 1990s, even if hedonic indexing is used.