IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/ifauwp/2011_008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating microfoundations for aggregate price rigidities: evidence from matched firm-level data on product prices and unit labor cost

Author

Listed:
  • Carlsson, Mikael

    (Sveriges Riksbank)

  • Nordström Skans, Oskar

    (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation)

Abstract

Using data on product-level prices matched to the producing firm's unit labor cost, we reject the hyptothesis of a full and immediate pass-through of marginal cost. Since we focus on idiosyncratic variation, this does not fit the predictions of the Makowiak and Wiederholt (2009) version of the Rational inattention model. Neither do we find that firms react strongly to predictable marginal cost changes, as expected from the Mankiw and Reis (2002) Sticky information model. We find that, in line with Staggered contracts models, firms consider both the current and future expected marginal cost when setting prices with a sum of coefficients not significantly different from unity.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlsson, Mikael & Nordström Skans, Oskar, 2011. "Evaluating microfoundations for aggregate price rigidities: evidence from matched firm-level data on product prices and unit labor cost," Working Paper Series 2011:8, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2011_008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ifau.se/Upload/pdf/se/2011/wp11-08-Evaluating-microfoundations-for-aggregate-price-rigidities.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter J. Klenow & Oleksiy Kryvtsov, 2008. "State-Dependent or Time-Dependent Pricing: Does it Matter for Recent U.S. Inflation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 863-904.
    2. Fabiani, S. & Druant, M. & Hernando, I. & Kwapil, C. & Landau, B. & Loupias, C. & Martins, F. & Mathä, T. & Sabbatini, R. & Stahl, H. & Stockman, A., 2005. "The Pricing Behaviour of Firms in the Euro Area: New Survey Evidence," Working papers 135, Banque de France.
    3. Oskar Nordström Skans & Per-Anders Edin & Bertil Holmlund, 2009. "Wage Dispersion Between and Within Plants: Sweden 1985-2000," NBER Chapters, in: The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison, pages 217-260, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Mikael Carlsson & Oskar Nordstrom Skans, 2012. "Evaluating Microfoundations for Aggregate Price Rigidities: Evidence from Matched Firm-Level Data on Product Prices and Unit Labor Cost," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1571-1595, June.
    5. Robert A. Buckle & John A. Carlson, 2000. "Inflation and Asymmetric Price Adjustment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 157-160, February.
    6. Taylor, John B, 1980. "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 1-23, February.
    7. Kleibergen, Frank & Paap, Richard, 2006. "Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 97-126, July.
    8. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    9. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni & Ilian Mihov, 2009. "Sticky Prices and Monetary Policy: Evidence from Disaggregated US Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 350-384, March.
    10. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    11. Bartosz Mackowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2009. "Optimal Sticky Prices under Rational Inattention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 769-803, June.
    12. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    13. Mark E Schaffer, 2005. "XTIVREG2: Stata module to perform extended IV/2SLS, GMM and AC/HAC, LIML and k-class regression for panel data models," Statistical Software Components S456501, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 26 Jun 2020.
    14. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis & Justin Wolfers, 2004. "Disagreement about Inflation Expectations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 209-270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Levy, Daniel & Dutta, Shantanu & Bergen, Mark, 2002. "Heterogeneity in Price Rigidity: Evidence from a Case Study Using Microlevel Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(1), pages 197-220, February.
    16. Apel, Mikael & Friberg, Richard & Hallsten, Kerstin, 2005. "Microfoundations of Macroeconomic Price Adjustment: Survey Evidence from Swedish Firms," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 313-338, April.
    17. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2005. "Comparing shocks and frictions in US and euro area business cycles: a Bayesian DSGE Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 161-183.
    18. Olivier Blanchard & Jordi Galí, 2007. "Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 35-65, February.
    19. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2004. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 947-985, October.
    20. Fernando Martins & M. Druant, 2009. "How are Firms’ Wages and Prices Linked: Survey Evidence in Europe," Working Papers w200918, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    21. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark & Lopez-Salido, J. David, 2001. "European inflation dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1237-1270.
    22. Philip Vermeulen & Daniel A. Dias & Maarten Dossche & Erwan Gautier & Ignacio Hernando & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl, 2012. "Price Setting in the Euro Area: Some Stylized Facts from Individual Producer Price Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(8), pages 1631-1650, December.
    23. Martin Eichenbaum & Nir Jaimovich & Sergio Rebelo, 2008. "Reference Prices and Nominal Rigidities," NBER Working Papers 13829, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Luis J. Álvarez & Emmanuel Dhyne & Marco Hoeberichts & Claudia Kwapil & Hervé Le Bihan & Patrick Lünnemann & Fernando Martins & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl & Philip Vermeulen & Jouko Vilmunen, 2006. "Sticky Prices in the Euro Area: A Summary of New Micro-Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 575-584, 04-05.
    25. Sam Peltzman, 2000. "Prices Rise Faster than They Fall," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 466-502, June.
    26. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    27. Claire Loupias & Patrick Sevestre, 2013. "Costs, Demand, and Producer Price Changes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 315-327, March.
    28. Emmanuel Dhyne & Luis J. Alvarez & Herve Le Bihan & Giovanni Veronese & Daniel Dias & Johannes Hoffmann & Nicole Jonker & Patrick Lunnemann & Fabio Rumler & Jouko Vilmunen, 2006. "Price Changes in the Euro Area and the United States: Some Facts from Individual Consumer Price Data," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 171-192, Spring.
    29. 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.
    30. J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    31. David Roodman, 2006. "How to Do xtabond2," North American Stata Users' Group Meetings 2006 8, Stata Users Group.
    32. Maćkowiak, Bartosz & Moench, Emanuel & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2009. "Sectoral price data and models of price setting," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(S), pages 78-99.
    33. Adolfson, Malin & Laséen, Stefan & Lindé, Jesper & Villani, Mattias, 2008. "Evaluating an estimated new Keynesian small open economy model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 2690-2721, August.
    34. Silvia Fabiani & Martine Druant & Ignacio Hernando & Claudia Kwapil & Bettina Landau & Claire Loupias & Fernando Martins & Thomas Mathä & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl & Ad Stokman, 2006. "What Firms' Surveys Tell Us about Price-Setting Behavior in the Euro Area," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    35. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2008. "Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1415-1464.
    36. Edin, P.-A. & Fredriksson, P., 2000. "LINDA - Longitudinal INdividual DAta for Sweden," Papers 2000:19, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    37. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    38. Sbordone, Argia M., 2002. "Prices and unit labor costs: a new test of price stickiness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 265-292, March.
    39. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Inflation dynamics: A structural econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 195-222, October.
    40. Ricardo Reis, 2009. "Optimal Monetary Policy Rules in an Estimated Sticky-Information Model," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 1-28, July.
    41. Eichenbaum, Martin & Fisher, Jonas D.M., 2007. "Estimating the frequency of price re-optimization in Calvo-style models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 2032-2047, October.
    42. Olivier Coibion, 2010. "Testing the Sticky Information Phillips Curve," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 87-101, February.
    43. Kimball, Miles S, 1995. "The Quantitative Analytics of the Basic Neomonetarist Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1241-1277, November.
    44. Trabandt, Mathias, 2003. "Sticky Information vs. Sticky Prices : A Horse Race in a DSGE Framework," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 2003,41, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    45. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    46. Bils, Mark, 1987. "The Cyclical Behavior of Marginal Cost and Price," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 838-855, December.
    47. Linde, Jesper, 2005. "Estimating New-Keynesian Phillips curves: A full information maximum likelihood approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1135-1149, September.
    48. Davis, Michael C & Hamilton, James D, 2004. "Why Are Prices Sticky? The Dynamics of Wholesale Gasoline Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(1), pages 17-37, February.
    49. Rotemberg, Julio J. & Woodford, Michael, 1999. "The cyclical behavior of prices and costs," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 1051-1135, Elsevier.
    50. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    51. 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.
    52. 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.
    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. Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson, 2006. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: In Search of Improvements and Adaptation to the Open Economy," Economics wp31_tjorvi, Department of Economics, Central bank of Iceland.
    2. Carlsson, Mikael, 2014. "Selection Effects in Producer-Price Setting," Working Paper Series 290, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    3. Bartosz Mackowiak & Frank Smets, 2008. "On implications of micro price data for macro models," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    4. Alvarez González, Luis Julián, 2008. "What Do Micro Price Data Tell Us on the Validity of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-36.
    5. Marcelle Chauvet & Insu Kim, 2021. "Incomplete Price Adjustment and Inflation Persistence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(6), pages 1337-1371, September.
    6. Emmanuel Dhyne & Jerzy Konieczny & Fabio Rumler & Patrick Sevestre, 2009. "Price rigidity in the euro area - An assessment," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 380, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    7. Klenow, Peter J. & Malin, Benjamin A., 2010. "Microeconomic Evidence on Price-Setting," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 6, pages 231-284, Elsevier.
    8. Claire Loupias & Patrick Sevestre, 2013. "Costs, Demand, and Producer Price Changes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 315-327, March.
    9. Maarten Dossche, 2009. "Understanding Inflation Dynamics.Where Do We Stand?," Review of Business and Economic Literature, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Review of Business and Economic Literature, vol. 0(2), pages 209-227.
    10. Martin S. Eichenbaum & Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2003. "Evaluating the Calvo model of sticky prices," Working Paper Series WP-03-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    11. David Altig & Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2011. "Firm-Specific Capital, Nominal Rigidities and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 225-247, April.
    12. Marcelle, Chauvet & Insu, Kim, 2010. "Microfoundations of Inflation Persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," MPRA Paper 23109, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Dhyne, Emmanuel & Fuss, Catherine & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Sevestre, Patrick, 2011. "Lumpy Price Adjustments: A Microeconometric Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(4), pages 529-540.
    14. Silvia Fabiani & Martine Druant & Ignacio Hernando & Claudia Kwapil & Bettina Landau & Claire Loupias & Fernando Martins & Thomas Mathä & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl & Ad Stokman, 2006. "What Firms' Surveys Tell Us about Price-Setting Behavior in the Euro Area," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(3), September.
    15. repec:cuf:journl:y:2017:v:18:i:1:jensen is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Slanicay Martin, 2014. "Some Notes on Historical, Theoretical, and Empirical Background of DSGE Models," Review of Economic Perspectives, Sciendo, vol. 14(2), pages 145-164, June.
    17. Christian Jensen, 2017. "Aggregate Evidence on Price Rigidities and the Inflation-Output Trade-Off: A Factor Analysis of Factor Shares," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 18(2), pages 227-252, November.
    18. Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2008. "Endogenous information, menu costs and inflation persistence," NBER Working Papers 14184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Eijffinger, Sylvester C. W. & Grajales-Olarte, Anderson & Uras, Burak R., 2020. "Heterogeneity In Wage Setting Behavior In A New-Keynesian Model," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 1512-1546, September.
    20. Gbaguidi, David, 2012. "La courbe de Phillips : temps d’arbitrage et/ou arbitrage de temps," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(1), pages 87-119, mars.
    21. Maarten Dossche & Freddy Heylen & Dirk Van den Poel, 2010. "The Kinked Demand Curve and Price Rigidity: Evidence from Scanner Data," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(4), pages 723-752, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price setting; business cycles; information; micro data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:ifauwp:2011_008. 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: Ali Ghooloo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifagvse.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.