The paper explains the observed asymmetric inflation response to value-added tax (VAT) changes in Hungary by calibrating a standard sectoral menu cost model on a new micro-level CPI data set. The model is able to reproduce important moments of the data, and finds that the asymmetry can be...

Asymmetric inflation response to aggregate shocks is an identifying macro-prediction of state dependent pricing models with trend inflation (Ball and Mankiw, 1994). The paper uses the natural experiment of symmetric value-added tax (VAT) changes in Hungary with highly asymmetric inflation...