This paper investigates the effect of sales and promotions on the pricing decisions of firms by providing a novel theoretical model where firms face menu costs when adjusting their price and offer items on sale to attract bargain hunters. It is demonstrated that in a recession, the frequency of...

How does price sensitivity change with the macroeconomic environment? We explore this question by measuring price elasticity using household-level data across 19 grocery categories over 24 quarters. For each category, we estimate a separate random-coefficients logit model with quarter-specific...

The demand for new insurance products in the UK has experienced important changes in recent years that can be attributed to three major factors. First, demographic changes have created different needs for more tailored products. Second, saving patterns have changed, due to changing economic...

During the Great Recession, the collapse of consumption across the US varied greatly but systematically with house-price declines. Our message is that household financial health matters for understanding this relationship. Two facts are essential for our finding: (1) the decline in house prices...