This paper documents the patterns and determinants of price setting in the Belgian industry. We analyse the micro data underlying the Producer Price Index (PPI) over the period from February 2001 to January 2005. On average only one out of four prices changes in a typical month, whereas the...

If firm pricing is state, rather than time-dependent, firms are more likely to change prices whenever aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks reinforce each other and trigger desired price changes in the same direction. The distribution of idiosyncratic shocks across adjusting firms therefore varies...

In this paper, we show that a simple model of smoothly state-dependent pricing generates a distribution of price adjustments similar to that observed in microeconomic data, both for low and high inflation. Our setup is based on one fundamental assumption: price adjustment is more likely when it...

We propose a near-rational model of retail price adjustment consistent with microeconomic and macroeconomic evidence on price dynamics. Our framework is based on the idea that avoiding errors in decision making is costly. Given our assumed cost function for error avoidance, the timing of...

This paper examines the role of habit formation in a standard state-dependent pricing (SDP) model. Incorporating habit formation helps the SDP model to generate hump-shaped and more persistent output responses under a monetary shock. More importantly, incorporating habit formation causes...

Golosov and Lucas (2007) have challenged the view that infrequent price adjustments by firms explain why money has aggregate real output effects. The basis of their challenge is the ‘selection effect’ – re-setting firms are not selected at random, they are those firms whose prices are...

We analyse the short-term dynamics of Polish economy with a prominent state-dependent pricing mechanism of Dotsey, King and Wolman (1999). We compare macroeconomic evidence of price rigidity in a small-scale DSGE model with a state-dependent Phillips curve (SDPC) derived by Bakhshi, Khan and...

This paper investigates price-setting behaviour of firms based on the individual price quotes underlying the Swiss consumer price index. The data set covers the years from 1993 to 2005. Six main findings emerge from the analysis. (i) Prices are sticky; the median duration amounts to 4.6...

While price-setting models usually suggest constant or increasing hazard functions for price changes, empirical studies often find decreasing hazards, possibly due to misspecified or neglected heterogeneity. This paper attempts to disentangle the downward bias into various sources: observed and...

The question of price stickiness remains one of the most important in macroeconomics, as price flexibility partly determines how long it takes for inflation and real economic variables to return to their potential levels after a shock. To get a better understanding of price change frequency and...