Using data from three sources (a laboratory experiment, a field study, and a large US supermarket chain), we document a surprising asymmetric behavior of 9-ending prices: they are more rigid upward, but not downward, in comparison to non 9-ending prices. The data from the lab experiment and the...

We test the predictions of the sticky information model using a survey dataset by comparing shoppers' accuracy in recalling the prices of regulated and comparable unregulated products. Because regulated product prices are capped, they are sold more than comparable unregulated products, while...

Inflation is painful, for firms, customers, employees, and society. But careful study of periods of hyperinflation point to ways that firms can adapt. In particular, companies need to think about how to change prices regularly and cheaply - because constant price changes can ultimately be very,...

Electronic shelf label (ESL) is an emerging price display technology around the world. While these new technologies require non-trivial investments by the retailer, they also promise significant operational efficiencies in the form of savings in material, labor and managerial costs. The presumed...

The monetary economy has properties that cannot be analyzed using the tools of today's dynamic general equilibrium analysis. Keynes's economics, far from being an aberration in the otherwise orderly evolution of modern macroeconomics from Adam Smith's ideas about the "invisible hand", was a...

This paper explores zero lower bound (ZLB) economics. The ZLB is widely invoked to explain stagnation and it fits with the long tradition that argues Keynesian economics is a special case based on nominal rigidities. The ZLB represents the newest rigidity. Contrary to ZLB economics, not only...

The monetary economy has properties that cannot be analyzed using the tools of today's dynamic general equilibrium analysis. Keynes's economics, far from being an aberration in the otherwise orderly evolution of modern macroeconomics from Adam Smith's ideas about the "invisible hand," was a...

In macroeconomic models, the level of price dispersion - which is typically approximated through its relationship with inflation - is a central determinant of welfare, the cost of business cycles, the optimal rate of inflation, and the tradeoff between inflation and output stability. While the...

I use the measures of frequency of price adjustment in Nakamura and Steinsson (2008) to show that stickier price industries have higher levels of output response to monetary policy shocks. Using a Vector Auto-regression model, I build different measures of response to a monetary policy shock of...

This paper investigates the welfare effects of inflation in economies with search frictions and menu costs. We first analyze an economy where there is no transaction demand for money balances: Money is a mere unit of account. We determine a condition under which price stability is optimal and a...