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.

Asymmetric pricing or asymmetric price adjustment is the phenomenon where prices rise more readily than they fall. We offer and provide empirical support for a new theory of asymmetric pricing in wholesale prices. Wholesale prices may adjust asymmetrically in the small but symmetrically in the...

There is evidence that 9-ending prices are more common and more rigid than other prices. We use data from three sources: a laboratory experiment, a field study, and a large US supermarket chain, to study the cognitive underpinning and the ensuing asymmetry in rigidity associated with 9-ending...

In this paper we argue that pricing is all about price changes, and that the costs of price changes are often simultaneously subtle and substantial. We discuss a framework to deal with the dynamics of changing prices. This framework incorporates customer interpretations of price changes, an...

We use U.S. county-level data consisting of 3,058 observations, to study growth determination and measure the speed of income convergence. County-level data are particularly valuable for studying convergence because they allow us to study a sample with substantial homogeneity and exceptional...

We tested whether friends’ and family members’ cardiovascular health events and also their own aspirin use are associated with the likelihood that an individual takes aspirin regularly. Analyses were based on longitudinal data on 2724 members of the Framingham Heart Study (based in...

The first-year findings reveal that while the 21st Century Community Learning Centers changed where and with whom students spent some of their after-school time and increased parental involvement, they had limited influence on academic performance, no influence on feelings of safety or on the...

We use U.S. county-level data to estimate convergence rates for 22 individual states. We find significant heterogeneity. E.g., the California estimate is 19.9 percent and the New York estimate is 3.3 percent. Convergence rates are essentially uncorrelated with income levels.

Recent studies in psychology and neuroscience find that fictional works exert strong influence on readers and shape their opinions and worldviews. We study the Potterian economy, which we compare to economic models, to assess how Harry Potter books affect economic literacy. We find that some...

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,...