This introductory essay briefly summarizes the eleven empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank's Inflation Persistence Network.

The price system, the adjustment of prices to changes in market conditions, is the primary mechanism by which markets function and by which the three most basic questions get answered: what to produce, how much to produce and for whom to produce. To the behaviour of price and price system,...

The marketplace, along with its price system, is the single most important institution in a western‐style free enterprise economy. The ability of prices to adjust to changes in supply and demand conditions enables the market to function efficiently, and that ability lies behind the magical...

This introductory essay briefly summarizes the 11 empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank's Inflation Persistence Network.

The price system, the adjustment of prices to changes in market conditions, is the primary mechanism by which markets function and by which the three most basic questions get answered: what to produce, how much to produce and for whom to produce. To the behaviour of price and price system,...

We study the price rigidity of regular and sale prices, and how it is affected by pricing formats (i.e., pricing strategies). We use data from three large Canadian stores with different pricing formats (Every-Day-Low-Price, Hi-Lo, and Hybrid) that are located within a 1 km radius of each other....

We study the price rigidity of regular and sale prices, and how it is affected by pricing formats (i.e., pricing strategies). We use data from three large Canadian stores with different pricing formats (Every-Day-Low-Price, Hi-Lo, and Hybrid) that are located within a 1 km radius of each other....

We construct a model of a firm competing for market share in a customer market and making investments in physical capital. The firm is financially constrained and there are implementation lags in investment. Our model predicts that product prices should depend on costs and competitors' prices,...

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...

This paper provides some new empirical features on price setting behaviour for French producers using micro data underlying the producer and business-services price indices over the period 1994-2005. Some crucial methodological issues on the collection of producer prices are raised. Then, the...