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Sales and Monetary Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Guimaraes, Bernardo
  • Sheedy, Kevin

Abstract

A striking fact about prices is the prevalence of "sales": large temporary price cuts followed by a return exactly to the former price. This paper builds a macroeconomic model with a rationale for sales based on firms facing consumers with different price sensitivities. Even if firms can vary sales without cost, monetary policy has large real effects owing to sales being strategic substitutes: a firm's incentive to have a sale is decreasing in the number of other firms having sales. Thus the flexibility of prices at the micro level due to sales does not translate into flexibility at the macro level.

Suggested Citation

  • Guimaraes, Bernardo & Sheedy, Kevin, 2008. "Sales and Monetary Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 6940, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6940
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernardo Guimaraes & Kevin D. Sheedy, 2011. "Sales and Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 844-876, April.
    2. Patrick J. Kehoe & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2008. "Temporary price changes and the real effects of monetary policy," Working Papers 661, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
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    6. Peter J. Klenow & Oleksiy Kryvtsov, 2008. "State-Dependent or Time-Dependent Pricing: Does it Matter for Recent U.S. Inflation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 863-904.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary policy; Nominal rigidities; Sales;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

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