We test the menu cost model of Ball and Mankiw (1994, 1995), which implies that the impact of price dispersion on inflation should differ between inflation and deflation episodes, using data for Japan and Hong Kong. We use a random cross-section sample split when calculating the moments of the...

We test the menu cost model of Ball and Mankiw (1994, 1995) on data from the inflation and deflation periods in Japan and Hong Kong. We calculate the moments of the distribution of price changes using a random split procedure to overcome the bias noted by Cecchetti and Bryan (1999). The key...

We test the menu cost model of Ball and Mankiw (1994, 1995), which impliesthat the impact of price dispersion on inflation should differ between inflation anddeflation episodes, using data for Japan and Hong Kong. We use a random crosssectionsample split when calculating the moments of the...