price inertia and market structure empirical evidence from austrian manufacturing 1993 price inertia and market structure empirical evidence from austrian manufacturing applied economics vol 25 no 9 pp 1175 1186

rockets and feathers the asymmetric speed of adjustment of uk retail gasoline prices to cost changes abstract the paper develops a quadratic quantity adjustment model to test the hypothesis put forward in the recent monopolies and mergers commission report that the speed of adjustment of uk retail gasoline prices to cost changes is more rapid when costs rise than when they fall and that the adjustment path is more concentrated around the mean value on the upswing using data from 1982 to 1989 evidence of faster and more concentrated responses to cost increases were found

theories of cartel stability and the joint executive committee this article reexamines the experience of the joint executive committee an 1880s railroad cartel to assess the applicability of the green and porter 1984 and rotemberg and saloner 1986 theories of price wars after discussing necessary modifications to the theories i estimate a number of dynamic models to explore the causes of price wars the cyclical nature of pricing and the possibility that secret price cuts may have been given the estimates provide some support for the predictions of the first theory

market structure and the nature of price rigidity evidence from the market for consumer deposits panel data on consumer bank deposit interest rates reveal asymmetric impacts of market concentration on the dynamic adjustment of prices to shocks banks in concentrated markets are slower to raise interest rates on deposits in response to rising market interest rates but are faster to reduce them in response to declining market interest rates thus banks with market power skim off surplus on movements in both directions since deposit interest rates are inversely related to the price charged by banks for deposits the results suggest that downward price rigidity and upward price flexibility are a consequence of market concentration

the distribution of price changes in oligopoly econometric analysis of the skew of price change distributions for an eighty industry sample over an eleven year period indicates that the distributions are less skewed in times of rapidly changing prices in concentrated oligopolies and in markets with little product heterogeneity the results provide evidence of less price staggering and greater pricing coordination by firms in times of high inflation and in oligopolistic markets respectively tight oligopolies also appear to have more symmetric distributions when prices are falling than when they are rising suggesting that price decreases are more readily followed than increases copyright 1993 by blackwell publishing ltd

market structure marketing method and price instability data for metals sold on commodity exchanges and at prices set by producers are used to test the relationship between the organization of markets and the behavior of prices on the production side the question is whether prices are more stable in concentrated industries and on the sales side the question is whether markets where buyers are consumers have more stable prices than those with consumers and speculators the recent increase in metal price instability is explained by changes in the market structure and organization variables foremost is increased reliance on commodity exchanges declines in concentration are of less importance

switching costs in two sided markets in many markets there are switching costs and network effects yet the literature gen erally deals with these two concepts separately this paper bridges the gap by analyzing their interaction effects or indirect bargain in a dynamic two sided market i show that in a symmetric equilibrium the classic result that the first period price is u shape in switching costs does not emerge but instead switching costs always intensify first period price competition moreover an increase in switching costs on one side decreases the first period price on the other side thus policies that ignore these effects may underestimate the welfare enhancing effects of switching costs

dynamic pricing in retail gasoline markets supergame models of tacit collusion show that supportable price cost margins increase with expected future collusive profits ceteris paribus as a result collusive margins will be larger when demand is expected to increase or marginal costs are expected to decline using panel data on sales volume and gasoline prices in 43 cities over 72 months we find behavior consistent with tacit collusion in retail gasoline markets controlling for current demand and cost current margins increase with expected next month demand and decrease with expected next month cost the results are not consistent with intertemporal l inkages due to inventory behavior or customer loyalty

the limits to discretionary fiscal stabilization policy the use of discretionary fiscal policy as a counter cyclical tool has declined in popularity over the last 30 years this paper examines the extent to which this decline is justified in terms of developments in macroeconomic theory over this period both a small calibrated model and a larger econometric model suggest that the intertemporal consumer will smooth away most of the impact of temporary tax changes even when additional discounting and credit constraints are allowed for however this analysis suggests a more powerful role for other forms of fiscal policy such as government objections to the use of discretionary fiscal stabilization policy and makes a tentative suggestion as to how these might be overcome copyright 2000 by oxford university press

symmetric or asymmetric price adjustments in the oil market an empirical analysis of the relations between international and domestic prices in the federal republic of germany 1972 89 abstract this paper investigates how german consumer and wholesale prices for gasoline and light heating oil react to changes in the corresponding rotterdam prices monthly data from 1972 to 1989 are employed and the subperiods of the 1970s 1972 to 1979 and 1980s 1980 1989 are distinguished error correction models are estimated to seperate long run equilibrium relations and short run adjustment processes for the 1980s we find rapid symmetric and full adjustment of the german prices to the rotterdam prices whereas during the 1970s we find some asymmetries and at least for gasoline the adjustment processes took considerably more time

markup adjustment and exchange rate fluctuations evidence from panel data on automobile exports abstract this paper uses data on bilateral automobile export prices from the usa germany and japan to gauge the importance of markup adjustment driven by exchange rate movements across several destination markets we find that japanese exports are characterized by a high degree of markup adjustment designed to stabilize the price measured in the buyer s currency there is weak evidence for such behavior on the part of german exporters and no evidence of markup adjustment by us exporters where it exists markup adjustment tends to be highly persistent the dynamic pattern of markup adjustment is consistent with invoicing in the exporter s currency except for exports to the usa and canada

sticky prices new evidence from retail catalogs this paper presents new results on the size frequency and synchronization of price changes for twelve selected retail goods over the past 35 years three basic facts about the data are uncovered first nominal prices are typically fixed for more than one year although the time between changes is very irregular second prices change more often during periods of high overall inflation third when prices do change the sizes of the changes are widely dispersed both large and small changes occur for the same item and the sizes of these changes do not closely depend on overall inflation

price adjustments by a gasoline retail chain we use daily data to examine price responses in the swedish gasoline market to changes in the rotterdam spot price exchange rates and taxes the distribution of price adjustments by a leading retail chain for the period january 1980 to december 1996 is symmetric with no small adjustments an error correction model shows that in the short run prices gradually move towards the long run equilibrium in response to cost shocks there is some evidence that also in the short run prices are stickier downwards than upwards prices respond more rapidly to exchange rate movements than to the spot market price our analysis emphasizes that to fully understand price adjustments it is necessary to examine data sets where the sample frequency at least matches that of price adjustments

staggering and synchronization in price setting evidence from multiproduct firms theoretical work on price setting behavior focuses on the single product case while in reality a single price setter sells many products the authors use retail store level multiproduct pricing data to learn about price dynamics they find that while the timing of a product s price changes is staggered across stores selling the same product the timing of the price changes of different products sold within the same store is highly synchronized this finding validates the usual assumption that decisions are staggered across price setters and suggests that price rigidity is due mostly to mechanical reasons and not to informational asymmetries copyright 1996 by american economic association

optimal pricing with costly adjustment evidence from retail grocery prices in many theoretical models it is assumed that there are costs associated with adjusting prices in this paper the existence type and magnitude of such costs are investigated empirically a discrete choice dynamic programming model that nests fixed and variable costs is developed and econometric estimates of the adjustment cost function are obtained the data used to implement the model consist of weekly retail prices and sales of three brands of saltine crackers sold by four chains of grocery stores in a small u s town the study has several distinguishing characteristics first the data are highly disaggregate at the level of brand and store second variables are sampled at weekly intervals third the model nests fixed and variable adjustment costs and can therefore determine their relative importance finally the discrete choice model is both structural and dynamic

determinants of price adjustment this paper reports results of an empirical study investigating the adjustment speed of prices to change in costs and demand particular emphasis is laid on the impact of concentration on the adjustment speed in addition the effects of the business cycle and capital intensity are considered it shows that concentrated industries tend to adjust prices faster while capital intensity has a negative impact prices are more flexible during an upswing than in times of a recession

vancouver s gasoline price wars an empirical exercise in uncovering supergame strategies this paper uses a unique data set to determine which dynamic model of tacit collusion best describes behaviour in a particular industry the area investigated is a region of the vancouver british columbia retail gasoline market players are service station managers who compete daily firms choose price in each period using strategies that depend on prices chosen in the previous period periodically unanticipated demand shocks precipitate price wars when shocks occur the firms in the market must determine the new demand conditions and adjust their strategies from an econometric point of view slopes of intertemporal reaction functions are latent variables the resulting system of equations with time varying parameters is estimated via the kalman filter different repeated game oligopoly models correspond to different transition matrices for the latent variables the models can thus be assessed in terms of their power to explain firm behaviour in this market

exchange rate pass through abstract the resilience of trade balances of the major industrialized economies to changes in their exchange rates has evoked interest in the exchange rate pass through relationship so far there has not been a comprehensive survey of this literature the paper aims to fill this gap in two ways first it pieces together the theoretical literature on exchange rate pass through second it provides a critical survey of the empirical literature on exchange rate pass through emphasis is placed on the data and methodology employed in previous work this is done in order to guide future work in this growing area of research

adjustment costs and pricing to market theory and evidence abstract this paper develops an adjustment cost model of pricing to market the model consists of a monopolist who supplies an identical nondurable good to two foreign markets it is shown that the degree of pricing to market increases with the relative importance of the transitory component in exchange rates customs data from 1978 through 1987 on u s and canadian imports of seven german commodities are used to estimate the model s parameters and test its over identifying restrictions

the rigidity of prices this paper uses evidence on individual transaction prices to analyze price behavior the evidence shows that for many transactions pricesremain rigid for periods exceeding one year the rigidity of price ispositively correlated with industry concentration for several productsthe correlation of price changes across buyers is low the paper alsoinvestigates the relationship between price rigidity price change andthe length of time a buyer and seller have been doing business together the author interprets the evidence as emphasizing the importance of nonprice rationing and the inadequacy of models in whichprice movements alone clear markets copyright 1986 by american economic association

retail price asymmetries in local gasoline markets the experience of the salt lake city retail gasoline market during the 1989 to 1993 period suggests that there was asymmetric adjustment wholesale and retail price data unique to the salt lake market are used to test for the existence of three types of price asymmetry during this period with respect to the magnitude of the pass through of wholesale price changes evidence of price asymmetry during periods of average weekly wholesale price changes is found however during market shocks the evidence points in the direction of retail price symmetry evidence of asymmetry with respect to the timing and pattern of the retail price response is found for periods of both average and market shock changes since gasoline is purchased by the consumer in local markets conclusions reached by studies of market pricing behaviour that rely on national data may not be relevant for local policy decisions this appears to be the case for the salt lake city market

do gasoline prices respond asymmetrically to crude oil price changes the authors test and confirm that retail gasoline prices respond more quickly to increases than to decreases in crude oil prices among the possible sources of this asymmetry are production inventory adjustment lags and market power of some sellers by analyzing price transmission at different points in the distribution chain the authors attempt to shed light on these theories spot prices for generic gasoline show asymmetry in responding to crude oil price changes which may reflect inventory adjustment effects asymmetry also appears in the response of retail prices to wholesale price changes possibly indicating short run market power among retailers

price adjustment in an automobile insurance market a test of the sheshinski weiss model nominal price rigidity is explained in the sheshinski weiss sw model by costly price adjustment the predictions of the sw model which describe a firm s optimal forward looking price adjustment strategy were derived and tested using microdata on the timing and the magnitude of premium changes by sixty nine firms in the alberta automobile insurance market over the period 1974 82 the model was tested by estimating the structural equations of the model probit equations for premium changes and reduced form equations for the firm s new premium and its old premium the overall conclusion is that the sw model does not explain the price adjustments observed in the alberta automobile insurance market