IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v146y2023ics0022199623000557.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What can stockouts tell us about inflation? Evidence from online micro data

Author

Listed:
  • Cavallo, Alberto
  • Kryvtsov, Oleksiy

Abstract

We use a detailed micro dataset on product availability and stockouts to construct a direct high-frequency measure of consumer product shortages during the 2020–2022 pandemic. We document a widespread multi-fold rise in stockouts in nearly all sectors early in the pandemic. Over time, the composition evolved from temporary to more permanently discontinued products, concentrated in fewer sectors. We show that unexpected shocks to stockout levels have significant inflationary effects within three months. These effects are larger and more persistent for imported goods and import-intensive sectors. We develop a model of inventories in a sector facing both demand and cost disturbances, and use the observed joint dynamics of stockouts and prices to show that these effects can be associated with elevated costs of replenishing inventories and higher exposure to trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Cavallo, Alberto & Kryvtsov, Oleksiy, 2023. "What can stockouts tell us about inflation? Evidence from online micro data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:146:y:2023:i:c:s0022199623000557
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2023.103769
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199623000557
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jinteco.2023.103769?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keane, Michael & Neal, Timothy, 2021. "Consumer panic in the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(1), pages 86-105.
    2. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2013. "Inventories, Markups, and Real Rigidities in Menu Cost Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 249-276.
    3. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2010. "Inventories and Real Rigidities in New Keynesian Business Cycle Models," NBER Chapters, in: Sticky Prices and Inflation Dynamics (NBER-TCER-CEPR), pages 259-281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Alberto Cavallo & Gita Gopinath & Brent Neiman & Jenny Tang, 2021. "Tariff Pass-Through at the Border and at the Store: Evidence from US Trade Policy," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 19-34, March.
    5. Victor Aguirregabiria, 1999. "The Dynamics of Markups and Inventories in Retailing Firms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(2), pages 275-308.
    6. Francois de Soyres & Ana Maria Santacreu & Henry L. Young, 2023. "Demand-Supply Imbalance during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Fiscal Policy," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 105(1), pages 21-50, January.
    7. James A. Kahn & Mark Bils, 2000. "What Inventory Behavior Tells Us about Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 458-481, June.
    8. Pawel Krolikowski & Kristoph Naggert, 2021. "Semiconductor Shortages and Vehicle Production and Prices," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2021(17), pages 1-7, July.
    9. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    10. Angus Deaton & Guy Laroque, 1992. "On the Behaviour of Commodity Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23.
    11. Veronica Guerrieri & Guido Lorenzoni & Ludwig Straub & Iván Werning, 2022. "Macroeconomic Implications of COVID-19: Can Negative Supply Shocks Cause Demand Shortages?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(5), pages 1437-1474, May.
    12. Alberto Cavallo & Eduardo Cavallo & Roberto Rigobon, 2014. "Prices and Supply Disruptions during Natural Disasters," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 449-471, November.
    13. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-529, October.
    14. Khan, Shafaat Yar & Khederlarian, Armen, 2021. "How does trade respond to anticipated tariff changes? Evidence from NAFTA," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    15. Alberto Cavallo & Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar, 2023. "Product Variety, the Cost of Living, and Welfare across Countries," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 40-66, October.
    16. Andrew B. Abel, 1985. "Inventories, Stock-Outs, and Production Smoothing," NBER Working Papers 1563, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Faberman, R. Jason & Mueller, Andreas I. & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2022. "Has the Willingness to Work Fallen during the Covid Pandemic?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. Hassan, Tarek & Hollander, Stephan & van Lent, Laurence & Schwedeler, Markus & Tahoun, Ahmed, 2020. "Firm-Level Exposure to Epidemic Diseases: Covid-19, SARS, and H1N1," CEPR Discussion Papers 14573, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Cavallo, Alberto, 2013. "Online and official price indexes: Measuring Argentina's inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 152-165.
    20. 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.
    21. Meier, Matthias & Pinto, Eugenio, 2024. "COVID-19 Supply Chain Disruptions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    22. Kanika Mahajan & Shekhar Tomar, 2021. "COVID‐19 and Supply Chain Disruption: Evidence from Food Markets in India†," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(1), pages 35-52, January.
    23. Hall, George & Rust, John, 2000. "An empirical model of inventory investment by durable commodity intermediaries," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 171-214, June.
    24. Alex Domash & Lawrence H. Summers, 2022. "How Tight are U.S. Labor Markets?," NBER Working Papers 29739, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Julio L. Ortiz, 2022. "Spread Too Thin: The Impact of Lean Inventories," International Finance Discussion Papers 1342, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    26. Jason Dunn & Fernando Leibovici, 2021. "Supply Chain Bottlenecks and Inflation: The Role of Semiconductors," Economic Synopses, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue 28, pages 1-2, December.
    27. Bils, Mark, 2016. "Deducing markups from stockout behavior," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 320-331.
    28. Gianluca Benigno & Julian di Giovanni & Jan J. J. Groen & Adam I. Noble, 2022. "The GSCPI: A New Barometer of Global Supply Chain Pressures," Staff Reports 1017, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    29. George A. Alessandria & Shafaat Y. Khan & Armen Khederlarian, 2019. "Taking Stock of Trade Policy Uncertainty: Evidence from China’s Pre-WTO Accession," NBER Working Papers 25965, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Andrew B. Abel, 1985. "Inventories, Stock-Outs and Production Smoothing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(2), pages 283-293.
    31. repec:bla:revinw:v:60:y:2014:i::p:s449-s471 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Youngna Choi, 2022. "Economic Stimulus and Financial Instability: Recent Case of the U.S. Household," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-25, June.
    2. Hugh Montag & Daniel Villar, 2022. "Price-Setting During the Covid Era," Economic Working Papers 547, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    3. Patrick W. McLaughlin & Alexander Stevens & Shawn Arita & Xiao Dong, 2023. "Stocking up and stocking out: Food retail stock‐outs, consumer demand, and prices during the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 1618-1633, September.
    4. Rachel Soloveichik, 2022. "Theoretical Inflation for Unavailable Products," BEA Working Papers 0193, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    5. Meyer, Brent H. & Prescott, Brian C. & Sheng, Xuguang Simon, 2023. "The impact of supply chain disruptions on business expectations during the pandemic," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    6. Alessandria, George & Khan, Shafaat Yar & Khederlarian, Armen & Mix, Carter & Ruhl, Kim J., 2023. "The aggregate effects of global and local supply chain disruptions: 2020–2022," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    7. An, Zidong & Sheng, Xuguang Simon & Zheng, Xinye, 2023. "What is the role of perceived oil price shocks in inflation expectations?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    8. Beck, Günter W. & Carstensen, Kai & Menz, Jan-Oliver & Schnorrenberger, Richard & Wieland, Elisabeth, 2023. "Nowcasting consumer price inflation using high-frequency scanner data: Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers 34/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    9. Uzma Khan & Alexander DePaoli, 2024. "Brand loyalty in the face of stockouts," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 44-74, January.
    10. Higo, Masahiro & Shiratsuka, Shigenori, 2023. "Consumer price measurement under the first wave of the COVID-19 spread in Japan: Scanner data evidence for retailers in Tokyo," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. Brent Meyer & Nicholas B. Parker & Xuguang Sheng, 2021. "Unit Cost Expectations and Uncertainty: Firms' Perspectives on Inflation," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2021-12a, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    12. Sonan Memon, 2022. "Inflation in Pakistan: High-Frequency Estimation and Forecasting," PIDE-Working Papers 2022:12, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    13. Galina Hale & John Leer & Fernanda Nechio, 2022. "Inflationary Effects of Fiscal Support to Households and Firms," Working Paper Series 2023-02, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    14. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Marc Giannoni & Ayşegül Şahin, 2022. "The Unemployment-Inflation Trade-off Revisited: The Phillips Curve in COVID Times," NBER Working Papers 29785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Melissa Maas & Gumataw Kifle Abebe & Christopher M. Hartt & Emmanuel K. Yiridoe, 2022. "Consumer Perceptions about the Value of Short Food Supply Chains during COVID-19: Atlantic Canada Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-20, July.

    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. Yi Wen, 2011. "Input and Output Inventory Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 181-212, October.
    2. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2013. "Inventories, Markups, and Real Rigidities in Menu Cost Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 249-276.
    3. Hall, George & Rust, John, 2000. "An empirical model of inventory investment by durable commodity intermediaries," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 171-214, June.
    4. Wen, Yi, 2003. "The Power of Demand: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Multi-Stage-Fabrication Economy with Inventories," Working Papers 03-13r, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    5. Zhiwei Xu & Yi Wen & pengfei Wang, 2012. "When Do Inventories Destabilize the Economy? ---A Tractable Approach to (S,s) Policies," 2012 Meeting Papers 288, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Yi Wen, 2005. "The multiplier: a general equilibrium analysis of multi-stage-fabrication economy with inventories," Working Papers 2005-046, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    7. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2010. "Inventories and Real Rigidities in New Keynesian Business Cycle Models," NBER Chapters, in: Sticky Prices and Inflation Dynamics (NBER-TCER-CEPR), pages 259-281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Hall, George & Rust, John, 2021. "Estimation of endogenously sampled time series: The case of commodity price speculation in the steel market," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 222(1), pages 219-243.
    9. Bec Frédérique & Salem Melika Ben, 2013. "Inventory investment and the business cycle: the usual suspect," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 335-343, May.
    10. Lubik, Thomas A. & Teo, Wing Leong, 2012. "Inventories, inflation dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips curve," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 327-346.
    11. George Hall and John Rust, Yale University, 2001. "Econometric Methods for Endogenously Sampled Time Series: The Case of Commodity Price Speculation in the Steel Market," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 274, Society for Computational Economics.
    12. Wen, Yi, 2005. "Understanding the inventory cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1533-1555, November.
    13. Asier Minondo, 2024. "How exporters neutralised an increase in tariffs," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 1274-1296, March.
    14. Aguirregabiria, Victor & Guiton, Francis, 2022. "Decentralized Decision-Making in Retail Chains: Evidence from Inventory Management," CEPR Discussion Papers 17149, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Oleksiy Kryvtsov & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2011. "Inventories, Markups and Real Rigidities in Sticky Price Models of the Canadian Economy," Staff Working Papers 11-9, Bank of Canada.
    16. Wen, Yi, 2004. "Durable Goods Inventories and the Volatility of Production: Explaining the Less Volatile U.S. Economy," Working Papers 04-01, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    17. Wen, Yi, 2003. "Durable Goods Inventories and the Volatility of Production: A Puzzle," Working Papers 03-12, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    18. Brown, Ward & Haegler, Urs, 2004. "Financing constraints and inventories," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1091-1123, October.
    19. Brown, Ward & Haegler, Urs, 2000. "Financing constraints and inventories," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119093, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Prices; Stockouts; Inventories; Supply disruptions; COVID-19 pandemic;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:eee:inecon:v:146:y:2023:i:c:s0022199623000557. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    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.