Econometric Modeling and Estimation of Theoretically Consistent Housing Price Indexes

Recent developments in the economic theory behind hedonic price models and price index numbers have shown that the preferred combination is one where hedonic imputed price indexes (HI) are computed using predictions from time varying hedonic functions. This paper proposes a spatial time series model as the econometric model consistent with the theoretical developments. In addition, the paper deals with issues relating to HI index numbers including weighting systems, seasonality in housing sales data, and the construction of annual and monthly chained indexes.