 (Q,S,s) Pricing RulesKenneth Burdett and Guido Menzio No 19094, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc Abstract: We study the effect of menu costs on the pricing behavior of sellers and on the cross-sectional distribution of prices in the search-theoretic model of imperfect competition of Burdett and Judd (1983). We find that, when menu costs are small, the equilibrium is such that sellers follow a (Q,S,s) pricing rule. According to a (Q,S,s) rule, a seller lets inflation erode the real value of its nominal price until it reaches some point s. Then, the seller pays the menu cost and changes its nominal price so that the real value of the new price is randomly drawn from a distribution with support [S,Q], where Q is the buyer's reservation price and S is some price between s and Q. Only when the menu cost is relatively large, the equilibrium is such that sellers follow a standard (S,s) pricing rule. We argue that whether sellers follow a (Q,S,s) or an (S,s) rule matters for the estimation of menu costs and seller-specific shocks. JEL-codes: D11 D21 D43 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published as Kenneth Burdett & Guido Menzio, 2018. "The (Q,S,s) Pricing Rule," The Review of Economic Studies, vol 85(2), pages 892-928. Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19094 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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