Price dispersion and inflation: new facts and theoretical implications

Viacheslav Sheremirov

No 15-10, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Abstract: From a macroeconomic perspective, price rigidity is often perceived to be an important source of price dispersion, with significant implications for the dynamic properties of aggregate variables, welfare calculations, and the design of optimal policy. For instance, in standard New Keynesian models, the key cost of business cycles stems from the price dispersion resulting from firms' inability to adjust prices instantaneously. However, different macroeconomic models make conflicting predictions about the level of price dispersion, as well as about its dynamic properties and sensitivity to inflation. These contrasting predictions can help us to discriminate across alternative models. This paper examines the link between price dispersion and inflation, and the role of sales in this relationship.

Keywords: inflation; price dispersion; sales; sticky prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E17 E31 E37 E40 E52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2015-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Journal Article: Price dispersion and inflation: New facts and theoretical implications (2020)
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