This paper identifies the basic features of the price setting mechanism in the Spanish economy, using a large dataset that contains over 1.1 million price records and covers around 70% of the expenditure on the CPI basket. In particular, the paper identifies differences in the frequency and size...

This paper identifies the basic features of price setting behaviour at the producer level in the Spanish economy using a large dataset containing the micro data underlying the construction of the PPI over the period 1991-1999. It explores how these general features are affected by some specific...

This paper reports the results of a survey carried out by the Banco de España on a sample of around 2000 spanish firms to deepen the understanding of firms’ price setting behaviour. The main findings may be summarised as follows. Most Spanish firms are price setters that use predominantly...

This paper presents original evidence on price setting in the euro area at the individual level. We use micro data on consumer (CPI) and producer (PPI) prices, as well as survey information. Our main findings are: (i) prices in the euro area are sticky and more so than in the US; (ii) there is...

This paper reports the results of a survey conducted by the Banque de France during Winter 2003-2004 to investigate the price-setting behavior of French manufacturing companies. Prices are found to adjust infrequently; the median firm modifies its price only once a year. Price reviews are more...

This paper reports the results of an ad hoc survey on price-setting behaviour conducted in February 2004 among 2,000 Belgian firms. The reported results clearly deviate from a situation of perfect competition and show that firms have some market power. Pricing-to-market is applied by a majority...

This paper analyses the results of a survey conducted by the Banco de Portugal with the main purpose of investigating firms’ price setting behaviour. The evidence points to the presence of a considerable degree of price stickiness, which seems to be higher in services than in manufacturing....

In this paper we critically reappraise some measures of the importance of time-dependent price setting rules and propose an alternative way to gauge the significance of this type of price setting behaviour. The merits of the proposed measure are highlighted in an application using micro-data....

In this paper we analyse the Finnish consumer price changes from February 1997 to December 2004 on the basis of a set of microdata which covers over half of the items included in the Finnish CPI. Our findings can be summarised with four stylised facts. Firstly, only a small fraction of prices...

This paper examines the process of adjustment of prices in Italy to determine whether nominal flexibility, measured by the frequency of price changes, has increased in the recent years of protracted stagnation and double-dip recession. The analysis is based on a large micro-level dataset of...