Price Adjustment in a Posted-Price Wholesale Market: California Beer and the 2025 Aluminum Tariffs

Matthew Cole (), Michael McCullough () and Nathan Miller ()
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Matthew Cole: Department of Economics, California Polytechnic State University
Michael McCullough: Agribusiness Department, California Polytechnic State University
Nathan Miller: Georgetown University and NBER

No 2602, Working Papers from California Polytechnic State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study business-to-business price adjustment around the 2025 U.S. aluminum tariffs, using California wholesale beer filings that date each price change. Posted prices rise commensurate with the increase in the cost of aluminum cans. Adjustment is delayed, selective, and bundled: new filings surge four months after implementation without raising prices, and the increases arrive at six and seven months, in filings that reset long-unrevised prices and span more of the product line. Surges recur in other years, at other dates, without the selection or bundling. Frictions that contribute to price rigidity between firms operate even around salient, dated cost events.

Keywords: price adjustment; menu costs; wholesale markets; posted prices; tariffs; beer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 F13 L11 L13 L66 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2026
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