This paper contrasts empirically four leading models of inflation dynamics - the accelerationist Phillips curve (APC), new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC), hybrid Phillips curve (HPC) and sticky information Phillips curve (SIPC). We employ an encompassing Phillips curve specification that allows...

We document a new stylized fact for the life-cycle behavior of consumer prices: relative to a narrowly defined set of competing products, the price of individual products tends to fall over the product lifetime. This holds true for more than 90% of the expenditure items underlying the U.K....

We present a sticky-price model incorporating heterogeneous firms and systematic firm-level productivity trends. Aggregating the model in closed form, we show that it delivers radically different predictions for the optimal inflation rate than canonical sticky price models featuring homogenous...