Science, Tech, Math › Social Sciences What Does "Hedonic" Mean in an Economic Context? Share Flipboard Email Print dowell/Getty Images Social Sciences Economics U.S. Economy Employment Supply & Demand Psychology Sociology Archaeology Environment Ergonomics Maritime By Mike Moffatt Professor of Business, Economics, and Public Policy Ph.D., Business Administration, Richard Ivey School of Business M.A., Economics, University of Rochester B.A., Economics and Political Science, University of Western Ontario Mike Moffatt, Ph.D., is an economist and professor. He teaches at the Richard Ivey School of Business and serves as a research fellow at the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management. our editorial process Mike Moffatt Updated March 17, 2017 In an economic context, "hedonic" means of or relating to utility. (In a more general sense, hedonic is related in its etymology to hedonism, which is the search for pleasure.) A hedonic econometric model is one where the independent variables are related to quality; e.g. the quality of a product that one might buy or the quality of a job one might take.A hedonic model of wages might correspond to the idea that there are compensating differentials -- that workers would get higher wages for jobs that were more unpleasant. Terms related to Hedonic: Exponential Utility FunctionCES UtilityExpected Utility You Might Also Be Interested In: What is Econometrics?How to Do a Painless Econometrics ProjectHow to Do a Painless Multivariate Econometrics Project Journal Articles on Hedonic: Hedonic housing prices and the demand for clean airSpecification and estimation of hedonic housing price modelsChoice of functional form for hedonic price equations