Using Japanese scanner data of transaction prices and sales for more than 1,600 commodity groups from 1988 to 2008, we find a statistically significant negative correlation between the frequency of price changes and the degree of market concentration. We also find that structural factors of a...

Using Japanese scanner data of transaction prices and sales for more than 1,600 commodity groups from 1988 to 2008, we find a statistically significant negative correlation between the frequency of price changes and the degree of market concentration. We also find that structural factors of a...

There is strong empirical evidence that the degree of price stickiness differs across commodity items, and that the nonparametric hazard function of price changes is downward-sloping with some spikes. We introduce item-specific heterogeneity into the standard single-sector model of Calvo [Calvo,...