Staggering and Synchronisation of Prices in a Low Inflation Environment: Evidence from German Food Stores
Abstract
Only a few studies have analysed staggering and synchronisation in pricing behaviour of multi-product firms. These studies used low-frequency data in an environment of high rates of inflation. This paper investigates staggering and synchronisation of weekly prices for ten food products in 131 grocery stores in Germany over the period from May 1995 to December 2000 (296 weeks). Different forms of staggering and synchronisation (across-store synchronisation, within type-of-store synchronisation, within retailer synchronisation or across-product synchronisation) have been analysed. None of these forms of synchronisation is supported empirically however. In contrast, perfect staggering can only be rejected in very few cases indicating that fixed or firm specific menu costs are not major causes for price stickiness. --Download Info
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Paper provided by Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Food Economics and Consumption Studies in its series FE Working Papers with number 0203.Length:
Date of creation: 2002
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:zbw:caufew:0203
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Related research
Keywords: Food Retail Market; Germany; Pricing Behaviour; Menu Costs;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - General
- L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- De Fraja, Giovanni, 1993. "Staggered vs. synchronised wage setting in oligopoly," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1507-1522, December.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Erwan Gautier, 2009.
"Les ajustements microéconomiques des prix : une synthèse des modèles théoriques et résultats empiriques,"
Revue d'économie politique,
Dalloz, vol. 0(3), pages 323-372.
- Gautier, E., 2008. "Les ajustements microéconomiques des prix : une synthèse des modèles théoriques et résultats empiriques," Working papers 211, Banque de France.
- Sebnem Bahadir-Lust & Jens-Peter Loy & Christoph R. Weiss, 2007. "Are they always offering the lowest price? An empirical analysis of the persistence of price dispersion in a low inflation environment," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 777-788.
- Robert J. Kauffman & Charles A. Wood, 2007. "Follow the leader: price change timing in Internet-based selling," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 679-700.
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