Inflation equals the product of two terms: an extensive margin (the fraction of items with price changes) and an intensive margin (the average size of those price changes). The variance of inflation over time can be decomposed into contributions from each margin. The extensive margin figures...

We introduce a model of oligopoly dynamic pricing where firms with limited capacity face a sales deadline. We establish conditions under which the equilibrium is unique and converges to a system of differential equations. Using unique and comprehensive pricing and bookings data for competing...

This paper compares retrospective and prospective analyses of the effect of flip charts on test scores in rural Kenyan schools. Retrospective estimates that focus on subjects for which flip charts are used suggest that flip charts raise test scores by up to 20 percent of a standard deviation....

This paper explores role of product adding and dropping within manufacturing firms over the business cycle. While a substantial body of work has explored the importance of the extensive margins of firm entry and exit in employment and output flows, only recently has research begun to examine the...

Despite the importance of patient insurance in the market for prescription pharmaceuticals, little is known about the impact of insurance on the pricing behavior of pharmaceutical firms. This paper examines the link between insurance and pricing using a unique policy experiment from Germany....

This paper offers an explanation for the persistence observed in real exchange rate movements. The model combines pricing to market behavior with sticky prices generated by staggered contracts. A translog preference structure is sued to enhance both features. The paper finds that openness limits...

If changes in aggregate demand were an important source of macroeconomic fluctuations, real wages would be countercyclical unless markups of price over marginal cost were themselves countercyclical. We thus examine three theories of markup variation at cyclical frequencies. The first assumes...

We study price dynamics for computer components sold on a price-comparison website. Our fine-grained data--a year of hourly price data for scores of rival retailers--allow us to estimate a dynamic model of competition, backing out structural estimates of managerial frictions. The estimated...

Energy price pass-through receives a lot of academic attention, for several reasons: energy prices can be highly volatile, they impact every consumer and every industry in the economy, and they are frequently impacted by regulations including gas taxes and carbon regulations. Like the...

We estimate the price elasticity of water demand with household-level data, structurally modeling the piecewise-linear budget constraints imposed by increasing-block pricing. We develop a mathematical expression for the unconditional price elasticity of demand under increasing-block prices and...