Some Evidence on the Adjustment of Producer Prices*

We document producer price adjustment using a low‐inflation micro price dataset. On average 24% of prices adjust each month, with an average increase/decrease of 6%. Producer prices adjust more frequently than consumer prices, but their size of adjustment is typically smaller. Sectoral heterogeneity in the frequency of price adjustment is strongly related to heterogeneity in the cost structure. Fluctuations in aggregate producer price inflation occur to a large extent through variation in the relative share of upward and downward price adjustment.     

Price convergence in the European Union – What has changed?

This paper investigates price convergence in European Union countries using disaggregated price level indices in the period 1999–2016. Our results show that prices of both tradable and nontradable goods had a significantly lower dispersion in 2016 than in 1999. The convergence was faster in the case of countries with price level below the average, which can be interpreted as catching-up. However, further analysis shows that most prices converged only up to 2008. While prices of transport equipment continue to converge across the European Union, several durable consumption categories show price divergence after 2008. We attribute this to the drop in international trade of durable products due to increasing inflation and exchange rates volatility following the global financial crisis. From the monetary policy perspective, the existing price-level gaps, shown in our study, may pose a risk of higher inflation, especially in catching-up economies.     

黄金价格、中国黄金储备与通货膨胀关系研究

文章通过格兰杰因果检验了黄金价格、人民币实际有效汇率、国内货币供应量与通货膨胀的关系。研究认为,黄金是对抗通货膨胀的有效工具,黄金价格上涨、黄金储备增大、国际石油价格和大宗商品价格上浮对通货膨胀有持续的拉动效应;货币供应量与通货膨胀之间存在短期与长期效应不一致的现象。提出密切关注黄金价格、增加国家黄金储备、建立黄金价格预警机制等措施。     

Inflation, price dispersion, and market structure

In this paper, we use a novel data set containing prices from bazaars, convenience stores, and supermarkets in Istanbul to re-examine the relationship between price dispersion and inflation. Although existing evidence is mixed, we find positive and significant relationships between dispersion, on the one hand, and lagged dispersion and unexpected product-specific inflation on the other. We also find evidence that dispersion is initially decreasing in anticipated aggregate inflation but is eventually increasing. Finally, average price duration and dispersion are lowest in the bazaar. This is intuitive, since menu and search costs should be minimal in that market structure.     

Non‐Linear Pricing and Price Indexes: Evidence and Implications from Scanner Data

Non‐linear pricing, the fact that prices do not necessarily change in proportion to size, is a ubiquitous phenomenon. However, it has been neither particularly well understood nor well measured. Non‐linear pricing is of practical importance for statistical agencies who, in constructing price indexes, are often required to compare the relative price of a product‐variety of two different sizes. It is usually assumed that prices change one‐for‐one with package and pack size (e.g. a 1‐liter cola costs half as much as a 2‐liter bottle). We question the wisdom of such an assumption and outline a model to flexibly estimate the price‐size function. Applying our model to a large U.S. scanner dataset for carbonated beverages, at a disaggregated level, we find very significant discounts for larger‐sized products. This highlights the need to pursue methods such as those advocated in this paper.     

Relative importance of sectoral and aggregate sources of price changes

This paper estimates a dynamic common factor model to assess relative importance of the aggregate and the sector-specific factors that determine changes in the prices of individual products. It also examines how aggregate price changes are affected by these factors. Two different specifications of the model are estimated: the baseline model with one aggregate factor, and a second specification with two aggregate factors. In the one-actor model, the aggregate factor contributes little to the movements of changes in prices, mostly of nondurable goods whereas it seems to have important contributions to the movements of changes in prices of commodity groups mainly used as intermediate or capital goods. In the specification with two aggregate factors, the additional factor has significant effects on changes in prices of ‘farm products’ and ‘processed foods and feeds’ only. Forecast-error variance decompositions of both aggregate and disaggregate price changes suggest that sectoral factors account for most of the variability at short horizons while the contributions of the aggregate factors increase as the time horizon lengthens. The results also show that sectoral factors are not only important for relative price changes but also have significant impact on aggregate inflation. The estimated common factors have statistically significant correlations with money growth and changes in the unemployment rate.     

Long-Run Links among Money, Prices and Output: Worldwide Evidence

Abstract. Starting from the quantity theory of money we analyse the dynamic relationships between money, real output and prices for an unbalanced panel of 110 economies. Complementary to trivariate analyses we also adopt a P-star model explaining inflation via an equilibrium price level (P-star), which in turn depends on potential output and money. A key issue of the paper is the cross-sectional stability of estimation and inference results. We find cointegration among the considered variables. Particularly for high inflation countries homogeneity between prices and money cannot be rejected. Given homogeneity we find evidence for an error-correction mechanism linking current price changes and the lagged price gap. Parameter estimates indicating the adjustment towards the price equilibrium are larger in absolute value for high inflation countries. The latter results indicate that central banks, even in high inflation countries, can improve price stability by controlling monetary growth.     

Sticky prices and moderate inflation

Recent evidence shows that there is great heterogeneity in the price setting frequency across sectors, and that those changing prices frequently do so even under low inflation. What happens to price setting strategies of sticky price goods under moderate inflation? We built a dataset of monthly newspaper and magazine prices for Colombia, for the period 1960–2005, an exceptional example of prolonged moderate inflation. Within this macroeconomic scenario, and the novel database, we study the frequency of price adjustment, the relative importance of time- and state-dependent theories, and their evolution as inflation declined from moderate rates to single digits.     

Explaining time variation in geographic price dispersion

The pattern of price dispersion significantly varies over time and across locations. Using a detailed dataset with product-level retail prices, we examine the role of time-varying factors in shaping the time variation of price dispersion. We find that price dispersion variation in an integrated region is mainly driven by oil prices, while the variation in a segmented region is attributed to dispersion in real income. We also find that dispersion in value-added tax rates explains a significant portion of price dispersion fluctuations in both geographic dimensions. This paper offers new evindence on the trade-off that exists for the role of time-varying factors as contributors to price dispersion variation by highlighting their relative importance across different dimensions of economic geography.     

A First Assessment of Some Measures of Core Inflation for the Euro Area

Abstract. Core inflation plays an important role in the deliberations of monetary policy-makers. In this paper we evaluate a number of measures of core inflation constructed using euro-area data. In addition to the traditional exclusion-type core measures, we examine two newer ones, documenting their properties and evaluating their performance in terms of their ability to track underlying or trend inflation in real time. We focus on core measures derived from the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) as the European Central Bank has chosen to define its mandate for price stability in terms of this index, and because this is the only index of consumer prices that is compiled in a comparable manner across all members of the European Union. We document significant excess kurtosis in the cross-section distribution of price changes in the euro area, and show that several categories of prices are more volatile than those typically excluded from traditional measures of core inflation. Contrary to what one might expect, traditional measures of core inflation are not significantly less volatile than headline measures. We document the superior performance of alternative measures of core inflation in tracking trend inflation on average, but show that none of the various measures of core gave significant advance warning of the pickup in trend inflation at the beginning of 1999.     

Do disaggregated CPI data improve the accuracy of inflation forecasts?

In this paper, we evaluate the role of using consumer price index (CPI) disaggregated data to improve the accuracy of inflation forecasts. Our forecasting approach is based on extracting the factors from the subcomponents of the CPI at the highest degree of disaggregation. The data set contains 54 macroeconomic series and 243 CPI subcomponents from 1992 to 2009 for Mexico. We find that the factor models that include disaggregated data outperform the benchmark autoregressive model and the factor models containing alternative groups of macroeconomic variables. We provide evidence that using disaggregated price data improves forecasting performance. The forecasts of the factor models that extract the information from the CPI disaggregated data are as accurate as the forecasts from the survey of experts.     

Price setting and the steady-state effects of inflation

This paper examines how price setting plays a key role in explaining the steady-state effects of inflation in a monopolistic competition economy with transactions-facilitating money. Three pricing variants (optimal prices, indexed prices, and unchanged prices) are introduced through a generalization of the Calvo-type setting that allows price indexation. We found that in an economy with less indexed prices, the steady-state negative impact of inflation on output is higher. Regarding welfare analysis, our results support a long-run monetary policy aimed at price stability with a close-to-zero inflation target. This finding is robust to any price setting scenario.JEL Classification: E13, E31, E50The writing of this paper commenced during the time I spent on the Research Visitors Programme 2001 of the European Central Bank and an earlier version of the paper became ECB Working Paper No. 140. I would like to thank Bennett T. McCallum, Frank Smets, and Oscar Bajo-Rubio for their valuable comments and suggestions, and the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain for its financial support (Research Project 2002/00954).     

Price setting behaviour in Latvia: Econometric evidence from CPI micro data

This paper discovers the driving forces behind Latvian firms' decisions to adjust prices by using various panel logit models, which explain the probability of observing price change by a broad set of exogenous variables. The results show that the consumer price formation in Latvia is a combination of both state-dependent and time-dependent behaviours. On the one hand, frequency of price changes depends on inflation, demand conditions, and the size of last price changes. On the other hand, we observe some elements of time-dependent price setting like price truncation and strong seasonal pattern. We also find several important differences in the price setting behaviour in cases of price increases and decreases. The fact that frequency of price changes in Latvia depends on inflation as well as demand and supply conditions allows for faster price adjustment process in the event of high distortions in the economy.     

Stylised features of consumer price setting behaviour in Portugal: 1992–2001

This paper identifies the empirical stylized features of consumer price setting behavior in Portugal using two micro-datasets underlying the consumer price index. The main conclusions are: one in every four prices change each month; there is a considerable degree of heterogeneity in price setting practices; prices of goods change more often than prices of services; price reductions are common, as they account to around 40% of total price changes; price changes are, in general, sizeable; finally, the price setting patterns seem to depend on the level of inflation as well as on the type of outlet.

Time- or state-dependent price setting rules? Evidence from micro data

We use two rich micro-datasets on Portuguese firms to analyse the ability of time- and state-dependent price setting rules to explain durations of price spells, or the probability of price changes. Using a duration model with time-varying regressors, we find some evidence of state-dependent price setting behaviour, which suggests that time-dependent models are unable to fully describe the features of the data. Specifically, we find statistically significant impacts on the probability of a price change of inflation, the level of economic activity and the magnitude of the last price change. Besides being statistically significant, in some cases these effects are also economically important. Finally, it is found that negative and positive values of the covariates have different impacts on the expected duration of prices.     

Inflation and relative prices: A system–wide approach

The paper introduces a system-wide model for the analysis of the effects of inflation on relative prices. This enables the identification of those commodities whose relative prices are distorted by inflation. The model provides measures of the natural rate of relative price variability, which is associated with zero inflation, and the inflation rate which minimizes relative price variability. An illustrative application with Australian data is provided.     

Choosing between Time and State Dependence: Micro Evidence on Firms' Price‐Reviewing Strategies

Because of recent findings based on survey data, it is now well known that firms differ from each other with respect to their price‐reviewing strategies. While some firms review their prices at fixed intervals of time, others prefer to perform price revisions in response to changes in economic conditions. Some theories have been suggested to explain this. However, empirical evidence on the relative importance of the factors that determine the different strategies of firms is virtually non‐existent. In this paper, we help to fill this gap by investigating the factors that explain why firms follow time‐dependent, state‐dependent, or both time‐ and state‐dependent price‐reviewing rules. We find that the strategies of firms vary with firm characteristics that have a bearing on the importance of information costs, with the variability of the optimal price, and with the sensitivity of profits to non‐optimal prices.     

Taxation and the asymmetric adjustment of selected retail energy prices in the UK

This paper investigates the adjustment of the prices of four key petroleum products in the UK following changes in the price of crude oil. We find significant evidence that the pre-tax prices of diesel, kerosene, and gas oil adjust more rapidly in an upward than a downward direction, but that the pre-tax price of unleaded petrol adjusts symmetrically. However, these patterns are obscured at the pump once one accounts for fuel duty and value-added tax, raising the possibility that firms can use the tax system to conceal rent-seeking behaviour.     

Evidence on the effects of inflation on price dispersion under indexation

Distortionary effects of inflation on relative prices are the main argument for inflation stabilization in macro models with sticky prices. Under indexation of non-optimized prices, those models imply a nonlinear and dynamic impact of inflation on the cross-sectional price dispersion (relative price or inflation variability, RPV). Using US sectoral price data, we estimate such a relationship between inflation and RPV, also taking into account the endogeneity of inflation by using two- and three-stage least-squares and GMM techniques, which turns out to be relevant. We find an effect of (expected) inflation on RPV, and our results indicate that average (??trend??) inflation is important for the RPV?Cinflation relationship. Lagged inflation matters for indexation in the CPI data, but is not important empirically in the PPI data.     

3F冲击对中国通货膨胀的影响研究

本文选取全球通货膨胀率、国际能源价格、国际食品价格作为3F外部冲击的三个影响因素,应用扩展的菲利普斯曲线实证分析1981年至2011年的外部冲击因素与我国通胀率的长期关系,然后使用VAR模型对这些外部因素所产生的冲击效果做进一步探究。实证结果表明：短期内,全球通货膨胀率是导致国内价格水平上升的主要原因;随着时间的推移,国际能源价格与国际食品价格对于国内价格水平的影响力逐渐增强,且在中长期成为较为重要的影响因素。而通胀预期与产出缺口则是中长期影响物价的最主要因素。因此,为了抵御外部冲击对我国通货膨胀的影响,管理我国对于本国及全球通胀的预期、构建相应的价格缓冲机制、实施农产品进口渠道多元化战略等均是较为有效的手段。与此同时,也要防止经济过快增长,抑制由于投资需求带来的通货膨胀。