This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Asymmetric Price Adjustment "in the Small:" An Implication of Rational Inattention

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Daniel Levy (Bar-Ilan University)
Haipeng Allan Chen (University of Miami)
Sourav Ray (McMaster University)
Mark Bergen (University of Minnesota)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

Analyzing scanner price data that cover 27 product categories over an eight-year period from a large Mid-western supermarket chain, we uncover a surprising regularity in the data—small price increases occur more frequently than small price decreases. We find that this asymmetry holds for price changes of up to about 10 cents, on average. The asymmetry disappears for larger price changes. We document this finding for the entire data set, as well as for individual product categories. Further, we find that the asymmetry holds even after excluding from the data the observations pertaining to inflationary periods, and after allowing for various lengths of lagged price adjustment. The findings are insensitive also to the measure of price level used to measure inflation (the PPI or the CPI). To explain these findings, we extend the implications of the literature on rational inattention to individual price dynamics. Specifically, we argue that processing and reacting to price change information is a costly activity. An important implication of rational inattention is that consumers may rationally choose to ignore—and thus not to respond to—small price changes, creating a “range of inattention” along the demand curve. This range of consumer inattention, we argue, gives the retailers incentive for asymmetric price adjustment “in the small.” These incentives, however, disappear for large price changes, because large price changes are processed by consumers and therefore trigger their response. Thus, no asymmetry is observed “in the large.” An additional implication of rational inattention is that the extent of the asymmetry found “in the small” might vary over the business cycle: it might diminish during recessions and strengthen during expansions. We find that the data are indeed consistent with these predictions. An added contribution of the paper is that our theory may offer a possible explanation for the presence of small price changes, which has been a long-standing puzzle in the literature.

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.

File URL: http://129.3.20.41/eps/mac/papers/0407/0407012.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Macroeconomics with number 0407012.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 53 pages
Date of creation: 12 Jul 2004
Date of revision: 11 May 2005
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0407012

Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 53
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://129.3.20.41

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (EconWPA).

Related research
Keywords: Asymmetric Price Adjustment; Rational Inattention; Cost and Benefit of Information Acquiring and Processing; Price Rigidity;

Other versions of this item:

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

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.:
  1. Leif Danziger, 1999. "A Dynamic Economy with Costly Price Adjustments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 878-901, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Ricardo Reis, 2004. "Inattentive Consumers," NBER Working Papers 10883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2004. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 947-985, October.
    Other versions:
  4. Cecchetti, Stephen G., 1986. "The frequency of price adjustment : A study of the newsstand prices of magazines," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 255-274, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Klaus Adam, 2003. "Optimal Monetary Policy with Imperfect Common Knowledge," Computing in Economics and Finance 2003 263, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Frank, Murray & Jagannathan, Ravi, 1998. "Why do stock prices drop by less than the value of the dividend? Evidence from a country without taxes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 161-188, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Judith A. Chevalier & Anil K Kashyap & Peter E. Rossi, 2003. "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 15-37, March. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. 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:
  9. Daniel Levy & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen, 2004. "Heterogeneity in Price Rigidity: Evidence from a Case Study Using Micro-Level Data," Macroeconomics 0402021, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Caplin, Andrew & Leahy, John, 1991. "State-Dependent Pricing and the Dynamics of Money and Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 106(3), pages 683-708, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Robert Barsky & Christopher L. House & Miles Kimball, 2003. "Do Flexible Durable Goods Prices Undermine Sticky Price Models?," NBER Working Papers 9832, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  12. Bennett T. McCallum, 1987. "On "Real" and "Sticky-Price" Theories of the Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 1933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  13. 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)
    Other versions:
  14. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2001. "Sticky Information Versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," NBER Working Papers 8290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  15. Caplin, A., 1992. "Individual Inertia and Aggregate Dynamics," Discussion Papers 1992_16, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  16. Warner, Elizabeth J & Barsky, Robert B, 1995. "The Timing and Magnitude of Retail Store Markdowns: Evidence from Weekends and Holidays," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(2), pages 321-52, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Price Rigidities and Market Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 350-55, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Caplin, Andrew S & Spulber, Daniel F, 1987. "Menu Costs and the Neutrality of Money," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 703-25, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  19. 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)
  20. Mikhail Golosov & Robert E. Lucas, 2003. "Menu Costs and Phillips Curves," NBER Working Papers 10187, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  21. Laurence Ball & N Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2003. "Monetary Policy for Inattentive Economies," Economics Working Paper Archive 491, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  22. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1994. "Asymmetric Price Adjustment and Economic Fluctuations," NBER Working Papers 4089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  24. George A. Akerlof, 2002. "Behavioral Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 411-433, June. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  25. Ball, Laurence & Mankiw, N. Gregory, 1994. "A sticky-price manifesto," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 127-151, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  26. Kashyap, Anil K, 1995. "Sticky Prices: New Evidence from Retail Catalogs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(1), pages 245-74, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  27. 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.
  28. Mankiw, N Gregory, 1985. "Small Menu Costs and Large Business Cycles: A Macroeconomic Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 100(2), pages 529-38, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  29. Burstein, Ariel T., 2006. "Inflation and output dynamics with state-dependent pricing decisions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1235-1257, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  30. Julio J. Rotemberg, 2002. "Customer Anger at Price Increases, Time Variation in the Frequency of Price Changes and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 9320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Kalyanaram, Gurumurthy & Little, John D C, 1994. " An Empirical Analysis of Latitude of Price Acceptance in Consumer Package Goods," Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(3), pages 408-18, December.
  32. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2004. "The Absent-Minded Consumer," NBER Working Papers 10216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  33. Levy, Daniel, et al, 1997. "The Magnitude of Menu Costs: Direct Evidence from Large U.S. Supermarket Chains," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(3), pages 791-825, August.
    Other versions:
  34. Michael Woodford, 2001. "Imperfect Common Knowledge and the Effects of Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 8673, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  35. Tsiddon, Daniel, 1993. "The (Mis)Behaviour of the Aggregate Price Level," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 60(4), pages 889-902, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  36. Lach, Saul & Tsiddon, Daniel, 1996. "Staggering and Synchronization in Price-Setting: Evidence from Multiproduct Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1175-96, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  37. Ricardo Reis, 2005. "Inattentive Producers," 2005 Meeting Papers 290, Society for Economic Dynamics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  38. 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)
    Other versions:
  39. Saul Lach & Daniel Tsiddon, 2007. "Small price changes and menu costs," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 649-656. [Downloadable!]
  40. Gupta, Sunil & Cooper, Lee G, 1992. " The Discounting of Discounts and Promotion Thresholds," Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(3), pages 401-11, December.
  41. Grewal, Dhruv & Marmorstein, Howard, 1994. " Market Price Variation, Perceived Price Variation, and Consumers' Price Search Decisions for Durable Goods," Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(3), pages 453-60, December.
  42. 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)
  43. Laurent Baudry & Hervé Le Bihan & Patrick Sevestre & Sylvie Tarrieu, 2004. "Price rigidity. Evidence from the French CPI micro-data," Working Paper Series 384, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  44. Mark Bergen & Daniel Levy & Sourav Ray & Paul Rubin & Benjamin Zeliger, 2004. "When Little Things Mean a Lot: On the Inefficiency of Item Pricing Laws," Emory Economics 0404, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  45. Carlton, Dennis W, 1986. "The Rigidity of Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 637-58, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  46. Danziger, Leif, 1988. "Costs of Price Adjustment and the Welfare Economics of Inflation and Disinflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 633-46, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  47. Akerlof, George A & Yellen, Janet L, 1985. "A Near-rational Model of the Business Cycle, with Wage and Price Intertia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 100(5), pages 823-38, Supp.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  48. Dutta, Shantanu & Bergen, Mark & Levy, Daniel, 2002. "Price flexibility in channels of distribution: Evidence from scanner data," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(11), pages 1845-1900, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  49. Dutta, Shantanu, et al, 1999. "Menu Costs, Posted Prices, and Multiproduct Retailers," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(4), pages 683-703, November.
    Other versions:
  50. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. " Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
  51. Daniel Levy & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen & Robert Venable, 1998. "Price adjustment at multiproduct retailers," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 81-120.
    Other versions:
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. Emmanuel Dhyne & Catherine Fuss & Hashem Pesaran & Patrick Sevestre, 2006. "Lumpy price adjustments : a microeconometric analysis," Research series 200610-12, National Bank of Belgium. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Jerzy D. Konieczny, 2006. "Discussion of: Lumpy Price Adjustments: A Microeconometric Analysis," Working Papers jk0035, Wilfrid Laurier University, Department of Economics, revised 1970. [Downloadable!]
  3. James Yetman, 2009. "Hong Kong Consumer Prices are Flexible," Working Papers 052009, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research. [Downloadable!]
  4. Babutsidze, Zakaria, 2006. "(S,s) Pricing: Does the Heterogeneity Wipe Out the Asymmetry on Micro Level?," UNU-MERIT Working Paper Series 033, United Nations University, Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology. [Downloadable!]
  5. Levy, Daniel & Young, Andrew, 2004. "The Real Thing: Nominal Price Rigidity of the Nickel Coke, 1886–1959," MPRA Paper 1046, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Mark Bergen & Daniel Levy & Sourav Ray & Paul Rubin & Benjamin Zeliger, 2004. "When Little Things Mean a Lot: On the Inefficiency of Item Pricing Laws," Emory Economics 0404, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Azar, Ofer H., 2006. "Behavioral industrial organization, firm strategy, and consumer economics," MPRA Paper 4484, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  8. Hansen, Kristin & Loy, Jens-Peter, 2007. "Multiproduct Food Retail Sales: A Case Study for Germany," 2007 1st Forum, February 15-17, 2007, Innsbruck, Austria 6568, International European Forum on Innovation and System Dynamics in Food Networks. [Downloadable!]
  9. Michael Ehrmann, 2006. "Rational inattention, inflation developments and perceptions after the euro cash changeover," Working Paper Series 588, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? Over 1000 institutions contribute their bibliographic data directly to this service.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-3.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.