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Asymmetric Price Adjustment in the Small

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Author Info
Levy, Daniel
Chen, Haipeng (Allan)
Ray, Sourav
Bergen, Mark

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Abstract

Analyzing a large weekly retail transaction price dataset, we uncover a surprising regularity—small price increases occur more frequently than small price decreases for price changes of up to about 10 cents, while there is no such asymmetry for larger price changes. The asymmetry holds for the entire sample and for individual categories. We find that while inflation can explain some of the asymmetry, inflation is not the whole story as the asymmetry holds even after excluding inflationary periods from the data, and even for products whose price had not increased over the eight-year period. The findings hold for different measures of inflation and also after allowing for lagged price adjustments. We offer a consumer-based explanation for these findings.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 1097.

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Date of creation: 30 Nov 2006
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Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:1097

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Related research
Keywords: Asymmetric Price Adjustment Price Rigidity Rational Inattention Rational Ignorance

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior
D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

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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.:
  1. Sam Peltzman, 2000. "Prices Rise Faster than They Fall," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 466-502, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Daniel Levy & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta & Robert Venable, 2005. "The Magnitude of Menu Costs: Direct Evidence from Large U.S. Supermarket Chains," Macroeconomics 0505012, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Jeffrey D. Karrenbrock, 1991. "The behavior of retail gasoline prices: symmetric or not?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jul, pages 19-29. [Downloadable!]
  5. Daniel Levy & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen, 2004. "Heterogeneity in Price Rigidity: Evidence from a Case Study Using Micro-Level Data," Macroeconomics 0402021, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Neumark, David & Sharpe, Steven A, 1992. "Market Structure and the Nature of Price Rigidity: Evidence from the Market for Consumer Deposits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 657-80, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Mark Zbaracki & Mark Ritson & Daniel Levy & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen, 2004. "Managerial and Customer Costs of Price Adjustment: Direct Evidence from Industrial Markets," Macroeconomics 0402020, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Lach, Saul & Tsiddon, Daniel, 1992. "The Behavior of Prices and Inflation: An Empirical Analysis of Disaggregated Price Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(2), pages 349-89, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Georg Müller & Sourav Ray, 2007. "Asymmetric price adjustment: evidence from weekly product-level scanner price data," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 723-736. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Shugan, Steven M, 1980. " The Cost of Thinking," Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(2), pages 99-111, Se.
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  17. Tobin, James, 1982. "Money and Finance in the Macroeconomic Process," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 14(2), pages 171-204, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Edward S. Knotek II, 2006. "A tale of two rigidities: sticky prices in a sticky-information environment," Research Working Paper RWP 06-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
  19. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard, 1986. "Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 728-41, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  21. Mark J. Zbaracki & Mark Bergen & Daniel Levy, 2006. "The Anatomy of a Price Cut: Discovering Organizational Sources of the Costs of Price Adjustment," Emory Economics 0610, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
  22. Peter J. Klenow & Jonathan L. Willis, 2006. "Sticky information and sticky prices," Research Working Paper RWP 06-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
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  23. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. " Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
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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.)

  1. Levy, Daniel & Lee, Dongwon & Chen, Allan (Haipeng) & Kauffman, Robert & Bergen, Mark, 2007. "Price Points and Price Rigidity," MPRA Paper 1472, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Daniel Levy, 2007. "Price rigidity and flexibility: new empirical evidence," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 639-647. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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