Non-price rigidity and cost of adjustment

Non-price Rigidity and Cost of Adjustment

There has been increasing interest in understanding how firms undertake non-price adjustment activities, especially in situations where prices may be rigid despite changes in market conditions. Using scanner price data for over 4500 different food products from a large US supermarket chain, we document periods of rigidity in product additions and deletions: new products are less likely to be in...

Holiday Price Rigidity and Cost of Price Adjustment

The Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday period is a major sales period for US retailers. Due to higher store traffic, tasks such as restocking shelves, handling customers’ questions and inquiries, running cash registers, cleaning, and bagging, become more urgent during holidays. As a result, the holiday-period opportunity cost of price adjustment may increase dramatically for retail stores, which sh...

Price Points and Price Rigidity

We study the link between price points and price rigidity, using two datasets: weekly scanner data, and Internet data. We find that (i) “9” is the most frequently used price-ending for the penny, dime, dollar and ten-dollar digits, (ii) the most common price changes are those that keep the price endings at these “9” digits, (iii) the 9-ending prices are less likely to change in comparison to no...

Between Adjustment and Rigidity

Asymmetric Price Adjustment In a Menu-Cost Model

In this paper we demonstrate that the menu-cost model implies asymmetric price adjustment to nominal demand shocks and that the asymmetry is linked to the elasticity of demand and menu costs. These are tested using manufacturing and retailing panel data for the OECD countries. The empirical results give strong support to the menu-cost model. JEL Classification: E3, L16 * Comments from Fhahad Kh...