Who Was First? An Examination of an Early Hedonic Study

Abstract

G. C. Haas produced a hedonic study more than 15 years prior to A. T. Court who first published the term hedonics. Haas's application was to agricultural land prices with a particular focus on distance to the city center and city size. Thus, Haas's work has much of the flavor of contemporary urban economics. A reestimation of Haas's model reveals that he did a respectable job in an age before computational machinery was available. The estimation of a new model reveals a tiny value gradient and shows that some of Haas's adjustments to price, especially his time adjustments, were amazingly accurate.