This paper studies the long-run effect of the 2002 changeover on restaurant prices in Germany. German restaurant prices increased significantly when the euro was introduced as a new currency but rather than returning to their re-changeover trend, restaurant prices appear to have stabilized on a...

One of the consequences of the euro changeover in 2002 was that for a period of several years people considerably overestimated actual inflation. The goal of this paper is to study whether misperceptions of this kind may have real effects, that is, whether they induce people to alter their...

The gap between actual and perceived inflation is one of the more unexpected consequences of the euro changeover in January 2002. In this note we argue that this gap was caused by a lack of preparation and experience of the authorities to appropriately communicate with the public during the...

The discrepancy between popular impressions of how the 2002 changeover to the euro affected prices and its actual impact is perhaps the most surprising consequence of the single currency’s introduction. Following the changeover, perceived inflation rose significantly and returned to its...

In a simple New Keynesian model, we derive a closed form solution for the inflation-gap persistence parameter as a function of the policy weights in the central bank’s Taylor rule. By estimating the time-varying weights that the FED attaches to inflation and the output gap, we show that the...

This paper studies whether menu costs are large enough to explain why firms are so reluctant to change their prices. Without actually estimating menu costs, we can infer their relevance for firms' price setting decisions from observed pricing behavior around a currency changeover. At a currency...

In a simple New Keynesian model, we derive a closed form solution for the inflation persistence parameter as a function of the policy weights in the central bank’s Taylor rule. By estimating the time-varying weights that the FED attaches to inflation and the output gap, we show that the...

Sick pay is a common provision in most labor contracts. This paper employs an experimental gift-exchange environment to explore two related questions using both managers and undergraduates as subjects. First, do workers reciprocate sick pay in the same way as they reciprocate wage payments?...

We use an experiment to explore how subjects learn to play against computers which are programmed to follow one of a number of standard learning algorithms. The learning theories are (unbeknown to subjects) a best response process, fictitious play, imitation, reinforcement learning, and a trial...

Two rationality arguments are used to justify the link between conditional and unconditional preferences in decision theory: dynamic consistency and consequentialism. Dynamic consistency requires that ex ante contingent choices are respected by updated preferences. Consequentialism states that...