We study the link between price points and price rigidity, using two datasets: weekly scanner data, and Internet data. We find that: 9 is the most frequent ending for the penny, dime, dollar and ten-dollar digits; the most common price changes are those that keep the price endings at 9; 9-ending...

The Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday period is a major sales period for US retailers. Due to higher store traffic, tasks such as restocking shelves, handling customers' questions and inquiries, running cash registers, cleaning, and bagging, become more urgent during holidays. As a result, the...

We take advantage of a natural experiment to document an emergence of a new price ending that has the same effects as 9-endings. In January 2014, the Israeli parliament has passed a law prohibiting the use of non 0-ending prices. We find that one year after 9-ending prices have disappeared,...

We document an asymmetry in the rigidity of 9-ending prices relative to non-9-ending prices. Consumers have difficulty noticing higher prices if they are 9-ending, or noticing price-increases if the new prices are 9-ending, because 9-endings are used as a signal for low prices. Price setters...

The Thanksgiving–Christmas holiday period is a major sales period for US retailers. Due to higher store traffic, tasks, such as restocking shelves, handling customers' questions and inquiries, running cash registers, cleaning and bagging, become more urgent during holidays. As a result, the...

Asymmetric pricing or asymmetric price adjustment is the phenomenon where prices rise more readily than they fall. We offer and provide empirical support for a new theory of asymmetric pricing in wholesale prices. Wholesale prices may adjust asymmetrically in the small but symmetrically in the...

We study the link between price points and price rigidity using two data sets: weekly scanner data and Internet data. We find that “9” is the most frequent ending for the penny, dime, dollar, and ten-dollar digits; the most common price changes are those that keep the price endings at...

Analyses of a large retail scanner price data set reveal a new and surprising regularity – small price increases occur more frequently than small price decreases for price changes of up to 10¢. That is, we find asymmetric price adjustment “in the small.” Furthermore, it turns out that...

Analyzing scanner price data that cover 27 product categories over an eight-year period from a large Mid-western supermarket chain, we uncover a surprising regularity in the data—small price increases occur more frequently than small price decreases. We find that this asymmetry holds for price...

Asymmetric pricing is the phenomenon where prices rise more readily than they fall. We articulate, and provide empirical support for, a theory of asymmetric pricing in wholesale prices. In particular, we show how wholesale prices may be asymmetric in the small but symmetric in the large, when...