IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/series/v16y2025i1d10.1007_s13209-025-00309-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analyzing VAT pass-through in Spain using web-scraped supermarket data and machine learning

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolás Forteza

    (Bank of Spain)

  • Elvira Prades

    (Bank of Spain)

  • Marc Roca

    (European Central Bank)

Abstract

On December 27, 2022, the Spanish government announced a temporary value added tax (VAT) rate reduction for selected products. VAT rates were cut on January 1, 2023. Initially, the VAT was expected to go back to their previous level six months later, but several waivers led this policy to last for 21–24 months, where the VAT returned to its original level in two phases. We study the pass-through of the temporary VAT rate changes covering the daily prices of roughly 21.000 food products sold online in a Spanish supermarket. We achieve this by utilizing a dataset obtained by web-scraping and employing machine-learning methods to classify each product into a COICOP5 category. To identify the causal price effects, we compare the evolution of prices for treated items (that is, subject to the tax policy) against a control group (food items out of the policy’s scope). Our findings indicate that, at the supermarket level, the pass-through was almost complete after one week. In using product characteristics, we notice differences in the rate of pass-through and in pricing strategy in the subsequent weeks.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolás Forteza & Elvira Prades & Marc Roca, 2025. "Analyzing VAT pass-through in Spain using web-scraped supermarket data and machine learning," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 137-189, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:series:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s13209-025-00309-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s13209-025-00309-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13209-025-00309-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13209-025-00309-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Stephen & Lambert, Peter John & Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J. & Sadun, Raffaella & Taska, Bledi, 2023. "Remote Work across Jobs, Companies, and Space," IZA Discussion Papers 15980, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Kehoe, Patrick & Midrigan, Virgiliu, 2015. "Prices are sticky after all," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 35-53.
    3. Erwan Gautier & Magali Marx & Paul Vertier, 2023. "How Do Gasoline Prices Respond to a Cost Shock?," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 707-741.
    4. Elliott Ash & Stephen Hansen, 2023. "Text Algorithms in Economics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 659-688, September.
    5. Alberto Cavallo, 2017. "Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-channel Retailers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(1), pages 283-303, January.
    6. Burstein, Ariel & Gopinath, Gita, 2014. "International Prices and Exchange Rates," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 391-451, Elsevier.
    7. Jeffrey R. Campbell & Benjamin Eden, 2014. "Rigid Prices: Evidence From U.S. Scanner Data," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 423-442, May.
    8. Alberto Cavallo, 2018. "Scraped Data and Sticky Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 105-119, March.
    9. R. Lafrogne-Joussier & J. Martin & I. Mejean, 2023. "Cost Pass-Through and the Rise of Inflation," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers 2023-13, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    10. Erwan Gautier & Cristina Conflitti & Riemer P. Faber & Brian Fabo & Ludmila Fadejeva & Valentin Jouvanceau & Jan-Oliver Menz & Teresa Messner & Pavlos Petroulas & Pau Roldan-Blanco & Fabio Rumler & Se, 2024. "New Facts on Consumer Price Rigidity in the Euro Area," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 386-431, October.
    11. Cavallo, Alberto, 2013. "Online and official price indexes: Measuring Argentina's inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 152-165.
    12. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2008. "Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1415-1464.
    13. Felix Montag & Alina Sagimuldina & Monika Schnitzer, 2020. "Are temporary value-added tax reductions passed on to consumers? Evidence from Germany's stimulus," Papers 2008.08511, arXiv.org.
    14. Etienne Gagnon, 2009. "Price Setting during Low and High Inflation: Evidence from Mexico," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1221-1263.
    15. Schnitzer, Monika & Montag, Felix & Sagimuldina, Alina, 2020. "Are temporary value-added tax reductions passed on to consumers? Evidence from Germany’s stimulus," CEPR Discussion Papers 15189, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Martin Eichenbaum & Nir Jaimovich & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "Reference Prices, Costs, and Nominal Rigidities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 234-262, February.
    17. Jeffrey R. Campbell & Benjamin Eden, 2014. "Rigid Prices: Evidence From U.S. Scanner Data," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55, pages 423-442, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stéphane Dupraz, 2024. "A Kinked‐Demand Theory of Price Rigidity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(2-3), pages 325-363, March.
    2. Ray, Sourav & Snir, Avichai & Levy, Daniel, 2023. "Retail Pricing Format and Rigidity of Regular Prices," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-1.
    3. David Staines, 2023. "Stochastic Equilibrium the Lucas Critique and Keynesian Economics," Papers 2312.16214, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    4. Solórzano, Diego & Arango-Castillo, Lenin, 2025. "Price duration using daily online data: Time- or state-dependent?," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 6(2).
    5. Snir, Avichai & (Allan) Chen, Haipeng & Levy, Daniel, 2022. "Zero-ending prices, cognitive convenience, and price rigidity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 519-542.
    6. Costain, James & Nakov, Anton, 2015. "Precautionary price stickiness," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 218-234.
    7. James Costain & Anton Nakov, 2019. "Logit Price Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(1), pages 43-78, February.
    8. Alberto Cavallo, 2018. "Scraped Data and Sticky Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 105-119, March.
    9. Karadi, Peter & Amann, Juergen & Bachiller, Javier Sánchez & Seiler, Pascal & Wursten, Jesse, 2023. "Price setting on the two sides of the Atlantic - Evidence from supermarket scanner data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(S), pages 1-17.
    10. repec:rim:rimwps:24-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Pascal Seiler & Barbara Rudolf, 2022. "Price Setting Before and During the Pandemic: Evidence from Swiss Consumer Prices," KOF Working papers 22-506, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    12. Giulietti, Monica & Otero, Jesús & Waterson, Michael, 2020. "Rigidities and adjustments of daily prices to costs: Evidence from supermarket data," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    13. Alberto Cavallo & Roberto Rigobon, 2016. "The Billion Prices Project: Using Online Prices for Measurement and Research," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 151-178, Spring.
    14. Nicolás Forteza & Elvira Prades & Marc Roca, 2024. "Analysing the VAT cut pass-through in Spain using web-scraped supermarket data and machine learning," Working Papers 2417, Banco de España.
    15. Alex Nikolsko‐Rzhevskyy & Oleksandr Talavera & Nam Vu, 2023. "The flood that caused a drought," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(4), pages 965-981, October.
    16. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2013. "Price Rigidity: Microeconomic Evidence and Macroeconomic Implications," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 133-163, May.
    17. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson & Patrick Sun & Daniel Villar, 2018. "The Elusive Costs of Inflation: Price Dispersion during the U.S. Great Inflation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1933-1980.
    18. M. Utku Özmen & Orhun Sevinç, 2016. "Price Rigidity in Turkey: Evidence from Micro Data," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(4), pages 1029-1045, April.
    19. Cavallo, Alberto & Rigobon, Roberto, 2011. "The Distribution of the Size of Price Changes," Working Papers 2011-011, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
    20. Elberg, Andrés, 2016. "Sticky prices and deviations from the Law of One Price: Evidence from Mexican micro-price data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 191-203.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:series:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s13209-025-00309-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.