The paper provides an empirical analysis of price setting behaviour in Slovakia, using large micro-level dataset covering about 57% of Slovak CPI for the period 1997-2001. The novelty of the paper is the analysis of a country characterized by nearly double-digit inflation and undergoing massive...

The paper provides an empirical analysis of inflation persistence in one of inflation targeting countries, the Czech Republic, using 412 detailed product-level consumer price indexes underlying the consumer basket over the period from 1994 to 2005. Subject to various sensitivity tests, our...

We use a unique panel data set to analyse price setting in restaurants in Switzerland 1977-93, for items known to have sticky prices. The macroeconomic environment during this time period allows us to examine how firms adjust prices at low (0%) and fairly high (7%) inflation. Our results...

We present a new partial equilibrium theory of price adjustment, based on consumer loss aversion. In line with prospect theory, the consumers' perceived utility losses from price increases are weighted more heavily than the perceived utility gains from price decreases of equal magnitude. Price...

We estimate impulse responses of sectoral price indexes to aggregate shocks and to sector-specific shocks. In the median sector, 100 percent of the long-run response of the sectoral price index to a sector-specific shock occurs in the month of the shock. The standard Calvo model and the standard...

This paper disentangles fluctuations in disaggregated prices due to macroeconomic and sectoral conditions using a factor-augmented vector autoregression estimated on a large data set. On the basis of this estimation, we establish eight facts: (1) Macroeconomic shocks explain only about 15% of...

We examine the effect of the minimum wage on restaurant prices. For that purpose, we estimate a price rigidity model by exploiting a unique dataset of individual price quotes used to calculate the Consumer Price Index in France. We find a positive and significant impact of the minimum wage on...

The Calvo contract Phillips Curve is widely indexed for general inflation, using either core inflation or other backward-looking formulae. Such a Phillips Curve implies a high and persistent degree of nominal rigidity. It is argued here that optimal indexation would by contrast use the rational...

If a consumer wishes to protect her retirement account from the risk of price changes in order to sustain a stable standard of living, then what price index should the account be indexed to? This paper constructs a dynamic price index (DPI) that answers this question. Unlike the existing theory...

This Paper uses a unique representative firm level data set to analyse the effect of domestic and international competitive pressure and ownership changes in three emerging economies, Bulgaria Poland and Romania. Our main findings can be summarized as follows: Domestic competitive pressure,...