Prices that end with 9, also known as psychological price points, are common, comprising about 70% of the retail prices. They are also more rigid than other prices. 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...

We study the properties of a profit-maximizing monopolist's optimal price distribution when selling to a loss-averse consumer, where (following Köszegi and Rabin (2006)) we assume that the consumer's reference point is her recent rational expectations about the purchase. If it is close to...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some goods suddenly became scarce due to panic purchases and stockpiling. The decision to hoard is influenced by higher-order beliefs. If an agent believes that other agents think that a good will become scarce, she concludes that these other agents will hoard, and...

If producers have more information than consumers about goods’ attributes, then they may use non-price (rather than price) adjustment mechanisms and, consequently, the market may reach a new equilibrium even if prices remain sticky. We study a situation where producers adjust the quantity (per...

This paper presents the novel implications of introducing price rigidities into a model of good-specific habit formation, for the response of private consumption following a positive government spending shock. With 'deep' habits in demand, the price elasticity of demand rises after the fiscal...

This paper investigates the behaviour of consumer prices in Italy by looking at micro data in the attempt to obtain a quantitative measure of the unconditional degree of price rigidity in the Italian economy. The analysis focuses on the monthly frequency of price changes and on the duration of...

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 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,...

Previous studies using consumer survey data on inflation expectations find that consumers revise their inflation forecasts approximately once every eight months, suggesting that information is quite "sticky." However, in the consumer survey data analyzed, respondents take the survey twice with a...

We study the implications for optimal monetary policy of introducing habit formation in consumption into a general equilibrium model with sticky prices. Habit formation affects the model's endogenous dynamics through its effects on both aggregate demand and households' supply of output. We show...