Skyzypacz, Andrzej (Stanford U) Koniecyzny, Jerzy D. (Wilfrid Laurier U)
Abstract
We study the behavior of prices in Poland following the big-bang market reforms in 1990, using a large, disaggregated data set. Price differences within and across regions are initially large but fall rapidly in the early stages of transition. For most goods, the rapid decline ends within a year. Dispersion is low for goods which are expensive, are bought frequently, constitute a large portion of household expenditures, and in markets characterized by intensive search for the best price. Inflation and inflation variability explain only part of the changes of price dispersion over time. The behavior of price dispersion is consistent with search for the best price and arbitrage. Overall, prices behave as economic theory predicts they would.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Stanford University, Graduate School of Business in its series Research Papers with number
1641.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)