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Holiday Price Rigidity and Cost of Price Adjustment

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Levy

    (Bar-Ilan & Emory)

  • Georg Muller

    (Litholink)

  • Shantanu Dutta

    (USC)

  • Mark Bergen

    (Minnesota)

Abstract
Using unique retail and wholesale price data for 4,532 products carried by a major Midwestern grocery retailer, we find evidence of significant retail price rigidity during the Thanksgiving through Christmas holiday period relative to the rest of the year. We suggest that this pattern of holiday retail price rigidity is best explained by an increased opportunity cost of changing prices at these stores during the holiday period. Evidence based on discussions with retail managers suggests that during holidays the physical, managerial, and customer costs of changing prices rise considerably. Due to higher store traffic, performing tasks such as restocking shelves, handling customers’ questions and inquiries, running cash registers, cleaning, and bagging, become more urgent during holidays and thus receive priority. As a result, the holiday-period opportunity cost of price adjustment increases dramatically for the stores. The data provide a natural experimental setting to study variation in price rigidity because the products, stores, and surrounding institutional features and arrangements, including the market structure, the contractual arrangements, and the nature of relationships, etc., do not change between holiday and non-holiday weeks.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Levy & Georg Muller & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen, 2004. "Holiday Price Rigidity and Cost of Price Adjustment," Macroeconomics 0402019, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Jun 2005.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0402019
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; prepared on Win 98; to print on Any printer; pages: 27 ; figures: There are no figures
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    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mac/papers/0402/0402019.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price Rigidity; Price Flexibility; Cost of Price Adjustment; Menu Cost; Holidays; Thanksgiving Holiday; Christmas Holiday; Scanner Data; Transaction Price Data; Retail Price; Wholesale Price; Natural Experiment; Opportunity Cost of Changing Price;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • L66 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Food; Beverages; Cosmetics; Tobacco
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness

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