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Price Flexibility in Channels of Distribution: Evidence from Scanner Data

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Author Info
Shantanu Dutta (USC)
Mark Bergen (Minnesota)
Daniel Levy (Bar-Ilan & Emory)

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Abstract

In this study, we empirically examine the extent of price rigidity using a unique store-level time series data set - consisting of (i) actual retail transaction prices, (ii) actual wholesale transaction prices which represent both the retailers' costs and the prices received by manufacturers, and (iii) a measure of manufacturers' costs - for twelve goods in two widely used consumer product categories. We simultaneously examine the extent of price rigidity for each of the twelve products at both, final goods and intermediate goods levels. We study two notions of price rigidity employed in the existing literature: (i) the frequency of price changes, and (ii) the response of prices to exogenous cost changes. We find that retail prices exhibit remarkable flexibility in terms of both notions of price rigidity. i.e., they change frequently and they seem to respond quickly and fully to cost changes. Furthermore, we find that retail prices respond not just to their direct costs, but also to the upstream manufacturers' costs, which further reinforces the extent of the retail price flexibility. At the intermediate goods level of the market, in contrast, we find relatively more evidence of rigidity in the response of manufacturers prices to cost changes. This despite the fact that wholesale prices change frequently and therefore exhibit flexibility according to the first notion of price rigidity.

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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Macroeconomics with number 0402018.

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Length: 66 pages
Date of creation: 07 Feb 2004
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0402018

Note: Type of Document - pdf; prepared on Win 98; to print on Any printer; pages: 66; figures: Figures are included
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Related research
Keywords: Price Flexibility; Price Rigidity; Final Goods Market; Intermediate Goods Market; Stages of Processing; Structural VAR; Scanner Data; Transaction Price Data; Frequency of Price Changes; Price Response to Exogeneous Cost Changes; Retail Price; Wholesale Price; New Keynesian Macroeconomics; How Markets Clear; Time Series Analysis; Orange Juice; Orange Juice Frozen Concentrate; Futures Market;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
L66 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Food; Beverages; Cosmetics; Tobacco
L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness

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Full references

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. Georg Müller & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta & Daniel Levy, 2005. "Private Label Price Rigidity during Holiday Periods," Emory Economics 0512, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Wang, Honglin & Xiang, Qing & Reardon, Thomas, 2006. "Market Power and Supply Shocks: Evidence from the Orange Juice Market," Staff Papers 11508, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Bergen, Mark & Levy, Daniel & Ray, Sourav & Rubin, Paul & Zeliger, Ben, 2006. "When Little Things Mean a Lot: On the Inefficiency of Item Pricing Laws," MPRA Paper 1158, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Daniel Levy & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen & Robert Venable, 2005. "Price Adjustment at Multiproduct Retailers," Industrial Organization 0505005, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Virgiliu Midrigan, 2007. "Menu Costs, Multi-Product Firms, and Aggregate Fluctuations," CFS Working Paper Series 2007/13, Center for Financial Studies. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Daniel Levy & Georg Müller & Haipeng (Allan) Chen & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta, 2008. "Holiday Price Rigidity and Cost of Price Adjustment," Emory Economics 0802, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Daniel Levy & Hainpeng (Allan) Chen & Sourav Ray & Mark Bergen, 2004. "Asymmetric Price Adjustment in the Small: An Implication of Rational Inattention," Emory Economics 0408, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Emi Nakamura & Dawit Zerom, 2009. "Accounting for Incomplete Pass-Through," NBER Working Papers 15255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Peter Berck & Jennifer Brown & Jeffrey Perloff & Sofia Villas-Boas, 2007. "Sales: Tests of Theories on Causality and Timing," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series 1031, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Robert Barsky & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta & Daniel Levy, 2001. "What Can the Price Gap between Branded and Private Label Products Tell Us about Markups?," NBER Working Papers 8426, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Ekaterina V. Peneva, 2009. "Factor intensity and price rigidity: evidence and theory," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-07, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  12. Pau Rabanal & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez, 2003. "Inflation persistence: how much can we explain?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Q2, pages 43-55. [Downloadable!]
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