Sectoral Price Data and Models of Price Setting

We use a statistical model to estimate impulse responses of sectoral price indices to aggregate shocks and to sector-specific shocks. In the median sector, 100 percent of the long-run response of the sectoral price index to a sector-specific shock occurs in the month of the shock. The Calvo model and the sticky-information model match this finding only under extreme assumptions concerning the profit-maximizing price. By contrast, the rational inattention model matches this finding without an extreme assumption concerning the profit-maximizing price. Furthermore, we find little variation across sectors in the speed of response of sectoral price indices to sector-specific shocks. The rational inattention model matches this finding, while the Calvo model predicts far too much cross-sectional variation in the speed of response to sector-specific shocks.