IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v77y1987i5p917-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Relative Rigidity of Monopoly Pricing

Author

Listed:
  • Rotemberg, Julio J
  • Saloner, Garth

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain why monopolies keep their nominal prices constant for longer periods than do tight oligopolies. The authors show that cost changes create a larger incentive for duopolists to change their prices, while demand changes tend to have a greater effect on a monopolist. When both costs and demand are affected by small changes in the overall price level, the cost effect dominates. In the presence of a small fixed cost of changing prices, therefore, duopolists change their prices in response to smaller perturbations in underlying conditions. Copyright 1987 by American Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Rotemberg, Julio J & Saloner, Garth, 1987. "The Relative Rigidity of Monopoly Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 917-926, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:77:y:1987:i:5:p:917-26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28198712%2977%3A5%3C917%3ATRROMP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    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. Olivier J. Blanchard & Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, 1985. "Monopolistic Competition, Aggregate Externalities and real Effects of Nominal Money," Working papers 401, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    2. George A. Akerlof & Janet L. Yellen, 1985. "A Near-Rational Model of the Business Cycle, with Wage and Price Inertia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(Supplemen), pages 823-838.
    3. Carlton, Dennis W, 1986. "The Rigidity of Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 637-658, September.
    4. Eytan Sheshinski & Yoram Weiss, 1977. "Inflation and Costs of Price Adjustment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(2), pages 287-303.
    5. M. Bronfenbrenner, 1940. "Applications of the Discontinuous Oligopoly Demand Curve," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(3), pages 420-420.
    6. Paul M. Sweezy, 1939. "Demand Under Conditions of Oligopoly," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(4), pages 568-568.
    7. Blanchard, Olivier J. & Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro, 1985. "Monopolistic Competition, Aggregate Demand Externalities and Real Effects Of Nominal Money," SSRI Workshop Series 292672, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Social Systems Research Institute.
    8. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1982. "Sticky Prices in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1187-1211, December.
    9. George J. Stigler, 1947. "The Kinky Oligopoly Demand Curve and Rigid Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(5), pages 432-432.
    10. Simon, Julian L, 1969. "A Further Test of the Kinky Oligopoly Demand Curve," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(5), pages 971-975, December.
    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. Alexander L. Wolman, 2007. "The frequency and costs of individual price adjustment," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 531-552.
    2. Richards, Timothy J. & Patterson, Paul M., 2004. "Causes of retail price fixity: an empirical analysis," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 117-136.
    3. Slade, Margaret E., 1999. "Sticky prices in a dynamic oligopoly: An investigation of (s,S) thresholds," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 477-511, May.
    4. Mark J. Zbaracki & Mark Ritson & Daniel Levy & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen, 2004. "Managerial and Customer Costs of Price Adjustment: Direct Evidence from Industrial Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 514-533, May.
    5. Choudhary, M. Ali & Faheem, Abdul & Hanif, M. Nadim & Naeem, Saima & Pasha, Farooq, 2016. "Price setting & price stickiness: A developing economy perspective," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 44-61.
    6. Fisher, Timothy C. G. & Konieczny, Jerzy D., 1995. "The relative rigidity of oligopoly pricing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 33-38, July.
    7. Mark Zbaracki & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta & Daniel Levy & Mark Ritson, 2005. "Beyond the Cost of Price Adjustment: Investments in Pricing Capital," Macroeconomics 0505013, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Levy, Daniel & Dutta, Shantanu & Bergen, Mark & Venable, Robert, 1998. "Price Adjustment at Multiproduct Retailers," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 81-120.
    9. Lucas, Deborah, 1999. "Price and interest rate dynamics induced by multiperiod contracts," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 315-338.
    10. Sascha A. Weber & Sven M. Anders, 2007. "Price rigidity and market power in German retailing," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 737-749.
    11. Wilko Letterie & Øivind Anti Nilsen, 2016. "Price Changes - Stickiness and Internal Coordination in Multiproduct Firms," CESifo Working Paper Series 5701, CESifo.
    12. Herrmann, Roland & Moeser, Anke, 2003. "Price Variability Or Rigidity In The Food-Retailing Sector? Theoretical Analysis And Evidence From German Scanner Data," Discussion Papers 26464, University of Giessen, Center for International Development and Environmental Research.
    13. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2010. "Monetary Non-neutrality in a Multisector Menu Cost Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 961-1013.
    14. Zakaria Babutsidze, 2012. "Asymmetric (S,s) Pricing: Implications for Monetary Policy," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(5), pages 177-204.
    15. Richards, Timothy J. & Gómez, Miguel I. & Printezis, Iryna, 2014. "Hysteresis, Price Acceptance, and Reference Prices," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 164872, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Laurence Ball & David Romer, 1989. "Are Prices Too Sticky?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(3), pages 507-524.
    17. Georg Müller & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta & Daniel Levy, 2007. "Non-price rigidity and cost of adjustment," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 817-832.
    18. Weinrich, Gerd, 2007. "New Keynesian monopolistic competition and objective demand," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-173, February.
    19. Maman Setiawan & Grigorios Emvalomatis & Alfons Oude Lansink, 2015. "Price Rigidity and Industrial Concentration: Evidence from the Indonesian Food and Beverages Industry," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 61-72, March.
    20. Erwan Gautier, 2009. "Les ajustements microéconomiques des prix : une synthèse des modèles théoriques et résultats empiriques," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 119(3), pages 323-372.

    More about this item

    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:77:y:1987:i:5:p:917-26. 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.