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Menu Costs, Multi-Product Firms and Aggregate Fluctuations

Author Info

  • Virgiliu Midrigan

    (Ohio State University)

Abstract

I employ a large set of scanner price data collected in retail stores and document that (i) although the average magnitude of price changes is large, a substantial number of price changes are small in absolute value; (ii) the distribution of non-zero price changes has fat tails; and (iii) stores tend to adjust prices of goods in narrow product categories simultaneously. I extend the standard menu costs model to a multi-product setting in which firms face economies of scale in the technology of adjusting prices. The model, because of its ability to replicate this additional set of micro-economic facts, can generate aggregate fluctuations much larger than those in standard menu costs economies.

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File URL: http://128.118.178.162/eps/mac/papers/0511/0511004.pdf
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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Macroeconomics with number 0511004.

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Length: 59 pages
Date of creation: 01 Nov 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0511004
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 59
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://128.118.178.162

Keywords: state-dependent pricing; multi-product firms;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
  • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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