How frequently do prices change? Evidence based on the micro data underlying the Belgian CPI

Luc Aucremanne () and Emmanuel Dhyne
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Luc Aucremanne: National Bank of Belgium, Research Department

No 44, Working Paper Research from National Bank of Belgium

Abstract: This paper examines the degree of price rigidity in Belgian consumer prices, using a large database. As to the observed degree of rigidity, the results reveal a substantial amount of heterogeneity, not only across but also within product categories. While prices turn out to be perfectly flexible for some product categories, they tend to be very sticky for others. Each month, nearly 17 p.c. of the consumer prices change on average and the median duration of a price spell is close to 13 months. A substantial subset of our results is compatible with state-dependent pricing, while other results suggest that some timedependency exists as well. The majority of price changes are price increases, but price decreases are not uncommon, except for services. The size of price changes is important. Price changes do not seem to be highly synchronised across price-setters within relatively homogenous product categories.

Keywords: consumer prices; price rigidity; state-dependent pricing; time-dependent pricing; staggered pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 D40 E31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 71 pages
Date: 2004-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (151)

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Working Paper: How frequently do prices change? Evidence based on the micro data underlying the Belgian CPI (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbb:reswpp:200404-1

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