American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Evaluating Microfoundations for Aggregate Price Rigidities: Evidence from Matched Firm-Level Data on Product Prices and Unit Labor Cost
American Economic Review
vol. 102,
no. 4, June 2012
(pp. 1571–95)
Abstract
Using matched data on product-level prices and the producing firm's unit labor cost, we find a moderate pass-through of current idiosyncratic marginal-cost changes. Also, the response does not vary across firms facing very different idiosyncratic shock variances, but identical aggregate conditions. These results do not fit the predictions of Mackowiak and Wiederholt (2009). Neither do firms react strongly to predictable marginal-cost changes, as expected from Mankiw and Reis (2002). We find that firms consider both current and expected future marginal cost when setting prices. This points toward impediments to continuous price adjustments as a key driver of monetary non-neutrality.Citation
Carlsson, Mikael, and Oskar Nordström Skans. 2012. "Evaluating Microfoundations for Aggregate Price Rigidities: Evidence from Matched Firm-Level Data on Product Prices and Unit Labor Cost." American Economic Review, 102 (4): 1571–95. DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.4.1571Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D24 Production; Cost; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
- D86 Economics of Contract: Theory
- E12 General Aggregative Models: Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- E52 Monetary Policy
- L11 Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms