IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/0321.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price Rigidity and Price Dispersion: Evidence from Micro Data

Author

Listed:
  • Eyal Baharad

    (University of Haifa)

  • Benjamin Eden

    () (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University and the University of Haifa)

Abstract

We use large unpublished data set about the prices by store of 381 products collected by the Israeli bureau of statistics during 1991-92 in the process of computing the CPI. On average 24% of the stores changed their price where the average is over products and months. Using the standard calculation this would imply that on average prices remain unchanged for 4.1 months. We argue that the standard calculation suffers from a large aggregation bias due to Jensen's inequality and our best estimate suggests that prices remain unchanged on average for more than 7.5 months. We then assess the importance of price rigidity in generating price dispersion. We find no evidence that price rigidity as measured by the frequency of nominal price changes is related to price dispersion. We also find no evidence that a shock to the inflation rate increases price dispersion. These findings are not consistent with standard versions of the staggered price setting model but are roughly consistent with a simple version of the uncertain and sequential trade model.

Suggested Citation

  • Eyal Baharad & Benjamin Eden, 2003. "Price Rigidity and Price Dispersion: Evidence from Micro Data," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0321, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:0321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/vu03-w21.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2003
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2000. "Sticky Price Models of the Business Cycle: Can the Contract Multiplier Solve the Persistence Problem?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1151-1180, September.
    2. Michael Dotsey & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 1999. "State-Dependent Pricing and the General Equilibrium Dynamics of Money and Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(2), pages 655-690.
    3. Taylor, John B., 1999. "Staggered price and wage setting in macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.),Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 1009-1050, Elsevier.
    4. Taylor, John B, 1980. "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 1-23, February.
    5. Williamson, Stephen D., 1996. "Sequential markets and the suboptimality of the Friedman rule," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 549-572, June.
    6. 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 349-389, April.
    7. 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.
    8. Saul Lach, 2002. "Existence And Persistence Of Price Dispersion: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 433-444, August.
    9. Eden, Benjamin, 1994. "The Adjustment of Prices to Monetary Shocks When Trade Is Uncertain and Sequential," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(3), pages 493-509, June.
    10. Benjamin Eden, 2001. "Inflation and Price Adjustment: An Analysis of Microdata," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(3), pages 607-636, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Crucini, Mario J. & Shintani, Mototsugu, 2008. "Persistence in law of one price deviations: Evidence from micro-data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 629-644, April.
    13. Robert E. Lucas, Jr. & Michael Woodford, 1993. "Real Effects of Monetary Shocks in an Economy with Sequential Purchases," NBER Working Papers 4250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Anil K Kashyap, 1995. "Sticky Prices: New Evidence from Retail Catalogs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 245-274.
    15. Woodford, Michael, 1996. "Loan commitments and optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 573-605, June.
    16. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    17. Carlton, Dennis W, 1986. "The Rigidity of Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 637-658, September.
    18. Bental, Benjamin & Eden, Bemjamin, 1996. "Money and inventories in an economy with uncertain and sequential trade," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 445-459, June.
    19. Bental, Benjamin & Eden, Benjamin, 2002. "Reserve requirements and output fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 1597-1620, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Micro data; price dispersion; sticky prices;

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • L00 - Industrial Organization - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:van:wpaper:0321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (John P. Conley). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.