An hedonic price model for the national apple market: Implications for Arizona apple growers

An hedonic model of apple prices was developed using data from the three largest producing regions of the United States. Results were used to determine the relative values of selected quality attributes. Specifically, coefficients on the variables produced by the regression represented price premia and discounts for the quality attributes. The variables included in the model were crop year, seasonality, region, variety, size, grade, storage, and a variable designed to measure the impact of the Alar scare on the 1988 crop of Red Delicious apples. Three models were developed. Model I utilized a linear functional form; Model II utilized a log-linear functional form; and Model III utilized a linear functional form with real price as the dependent variable. The results of Model I were used in the final analysis. It was found that size, grade, storage, and seasonality had consistent relationships to the price of an apple. The findings are applied to the Arizona apple industry.

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