We examine the role of nominal price rigidities in explaining the deviations from the Law of One Price (LOP) across cities in Japan. Focusing on intra-national relative prices isolates the border effect and thus enables us to extract the pure effect of sticky prices. A two-city model with nominal rigidities and transportation costs predicts that the variation of LOP deviations is lower for goods with less frequent price adjustment after controlling for the distance separating the cities. Using retail price data for individual goods and services collected in Japanese cities, we find strong evidence supporting this prediction. Adapting the Engel and Rogers (1996) regression framework to our theoretical setting, we quantify the separate roles of nominal rigidities and trade costs (proxied by distance) in generating LOP variability. Our estimates suggest that the distance equivalent of nominal rigidities can be as large as the `width' of the border typically found in the literature on international LOP deviations. The findings point to both the utility of the regression framework in identifying qualitative effects (i.e., sign of a coefficient) and the challenges interpreting their quantitative implications.
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.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
14835.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14835
Note: IFM Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Find related papers by JEL classification: D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing F40 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - General F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996.
"How Wide Is the Border?,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-25, December.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions: