IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v101y2011i1p234-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reference Prices, Costs, and Nominal Rigidities

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Eichenbaum
  • Nir Jaimovich
  • Sergio Rebelo

Abstract

We assess the importance of nominal rigidities using a new weekly scanner dataset. We find that nominal rigidities take the form of inertia in reference prices and costs, defined as the most common prices and costs within a given quarter. Reference prices are particularly inertial and have an average duration of roughly one year, even though weekly prices change roughly once every two weeks. We document the relation between prices and costs and find sharp evidence of state dependence in prices. We use a simple model to argue that reference prices and costs are useful statistics for macroeconomic analysis. (JEL L11, L25, L81)

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Eichenbaum & Nir Jaimovich & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "Reference Prices, Costs, and Nominal Rigidities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 234-262, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:1:p:234-62
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.234
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/feb2011/20080150_data.zip
    File Function: dataset accompanying article
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernardo Guimaraes & Kevin D. Sheedy, 2011. "Sales and Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 844-876, April.
    2. Kenn Ariga & Kenji Matsui & Makoto Watanabe, 2001. "Hot and Spicy: Ups and Downs on the Price Floor and Ceiling at Japanese Supermarkets," Asia Pacific Economic Papers 316, Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    3. Judith A. Chevalier & Anil K. Kashyap & Peter E. Rossi, 2003. "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 15-37, March.
    4. Elizabeth J. Warner & Robert B. Barsky, 1995. "The Timing and Magnitude of Retail Store Markdowns: Evidence from Weekends and Holidays," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 321-352.
    5. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern97-1.
    6. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    7. Margaret E. Slade & G.R.E.Q.A.M., 1998. "Optimal Pricing with Costly Adjustment: Evidence from Retail-Grocery Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(1), pages 87-107.
    8. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg (ed.), 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026252242x, April.
    9. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    10. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1997. "Editorial in "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12"," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Carlsson, Mikael & Westermark, Andreas, 2011. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve and staggered price and wage determination in a model with firm-specific labor," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 579-603, April.
    2. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido & Javier Vallés, 2007. "Understanding the Effects of Government Spending on Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(1), pages 227-270, March.
    3. Antonella Trigari, 2009. "Equilibrium Unemployment, Job Flows, and Inflation Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 1-33, February.
    4. Hanson Michael S. & Kapinos Pavel S., 2008. "Endogenous Persistence and the Performance of Inertial Targeting Rules," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-31, March.
    5. Cassou, Steven P. & Vázquez Pérez, Jesús, 2010. "New Keynesian Model Features that Can Reproduce Lead, Lag and Persistence Patterns," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    6. Pedro Garcia Duarte, 2011. "Recent Developments in Macroeconomics: The DSGE Approach to Business Cycles in Perspective," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & D. Wade Hands (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Chen, Xiaoshan & Kirsanova, Tatiana & Leith, Campbell, 2017. "How optimal is US monetary policy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 96-111.
    8. Daniel Buncic & Martin Melecky, 2008. "An Estimated New Keynesian Policy Model for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(264), pages 1-16, March.
    9. Paccagnini, Alessia, 2017. "Dealing with Misspecification in DSGE Models: A Survey," MPRA Paper 82914, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Matthew B. Canzoneri & Robert E. Cumby & Behzad T. Diba, 2007. "The Cost of Nominal Rigidity in NNS Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1563-1586, October.
    11. Daniel O. Beltran & David Draper, 2018. "Estimating dynamic macroeconomic models: how informative are the data?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 67(2), pages 501-520, February.
    12. Bekiros Stelios & Paccagnini Alessia, 2015. "Estimating point and density forecasts for the US economy with a factor-augmented vector autoregressive DSGE model," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 107-136, April.
    13. Cassou Steven P. & Vázquez Jesús, 2014. "Small-scale New Keynesian model features that can reproduce lead, lag and persistence patterns," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 267-300, January.
    14. Huang, Kevin X.D. & Meng, Qinglai & Xue, Jianpo, 2009. "Is forward-looking inflation targeting destabilizing? The role of policy's response to current output under endogenous investment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 409-430, February.
    15. John H. Cochrane, 2017. "Michelson-Morley, Fisher, and Occam: The Radical Implications of Stable Quiet Inflation at the Zero Bound," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2017, volume 32, pages 113-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Fernández-Villaverde, J. & Rubio-Ramírez, J.F. & Schorfheide, F., 2016. "Solution and Estimation Methods for DSGE Models," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 527-724, Elsevier.
    17. M. Woodford., 2010. "Convergence in Macroeconomics: Elements of the New Synthesis," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 10.
    18. Wieland, Volker & Binder, Michael & Lieberknecht, Philipp & Quintana, Jorge, 2017. "Model Uncertainty in Macroeconomics: On the Implications of Financial Frictions," CEPR Discussion Papers 12013, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Gareis, Johannes & Mayer, Eric, 2020. "Financial shocks and the relative dynamics of tangible and intangible investment: Evidence from the euro area," Discussion Papers 39/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Reference Prices, Costs, and Nominal Rigidities (AER 2011) in ReplicationWiki

    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:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:1:p:234-62. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.