Setting the right prices for the wrong reasons

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Monetary Economics
Year: 2009
Volume: 56
Issue: S
Pages: S57-S77

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Nominal price adjustment is studied in an environment with firm-specific and aggregate shocks to economic fundamentals and incomplete, dispersed information. Firms update their expectations about fundamentals based on their own cash flows (revenues and wages). We show that in a model with realistic levels of product-level price dispersion, the firms’ inference about aggregate shocks is very gradual, yet in the aggregate prices adjust rapidly in response to aggregate nominal shocks. When an aggregate shock occurs, firms mistakenly attribute it to firm-specific shocks, but adjust prices nevertheless, since the exact nature of the shock matters little for their optimal pricing decision.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:moneco:v:56:y:2009:i:s:p:s57-s77
Journal Field
Macro
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25