The roles of price points and menu costs in price rigidity

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Monetary Economics
Year: 2024
Volume: 145
Issue: C

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

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

Abstract

Macroeconomic models often generate nominal price rigidity via menu costs. In scanner databases, (1) price points, embodied in nine-ending prices, account for two-thirds of prices; (2) at the conclusion of sales, post-sale prices return to their pre-sale levels more than three-fourths of the time; and (3) such memory around sales is stronger if the pre-sale price was a price point. Extending a canonical menu cost model to allow for price points, I estimate an incentive to set nine-ending prices two orders of magnitude larger than the menu costs. The choice of a mechanism for price rigidity matters for aggregate dynamics.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:moneco:v:145:y:2024:i:c:s0304393224000126
Journal Field
Macro
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-25