The Timing of Price Changes and the Role of Heterogeneity

January 1, 2010
Issue 2010-02

Download file now

The file can be downloaded with the button below.

Abstract

While price-setting models usually suggest constant or increasing hazard functions for price changes, empirical studies often find decreasing hazards, possibly due to misspecified or neglected heterogeneity. This paper attempts to disentangle the downward bias into various sources: observed and unobserved heterogeneity which can be either constant or time-varying. Based on micro data from the Swiss CPI, the paper finds that in order to resolve the downward bias of the hazard function for price changes, we have to (i) control for time-varying heterogeneity in addition to cross-sectional factors and (ii) exclude temporary price changes such as sales prices from the data set. Among the time-varying factors affecting the probability of price changes, various proxies of firms' marginal costs seem to be key. The empirical findings presented in this paper are consistent with recent menu cost models which stress the role of time-varying heterogeneity and temporary price cuts for price setting.

Issue:
02
Pages:
69
JEL classification:
E31, D40, C41
Keywords:
price setting, hazard function, downward bias, heterogeneity, sales prices, state-dependent pricing
Year:
2010

Additional files

Related content

Author(s)

  • Daniel Kaufmann

Your settings

Required: These cookies (e.g. for storing your IP address) cannot be rejected as they are necessary to ensure the operation of the website. These data are not evaluated further.
Analytics: If you consent to this category, data such as IP address, location, device information, browser version and site visitor behaviour will be collected. These data are evaluated for the SNB's internal purposes and are kept for two years.
Third-party: If you consent to this category, third-party services (used, for example, to add social multimedia content to the SNB's website) will be activated which collect personal data, process these data, disclose them abroad - worldwide - and place cookies. The relevant data protection regulations are linked in the 'Privacy statement for the website of the Swiss National Bank'.

Choose your preferred settings:

This website uses cookies, analytics tools and other technologies to provide requested features, content and services, to personalise the content shown, to provide links to social media, and to analyse the use of the website in anonymised form for the purposes of improving usability. Personal data are also disclosed abroad - worldwide - to video service providers and the analytics tools of these providers are used. More information is available under 'Manage settings'.