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Are internet prices sticky?

Author

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  • Lünnemann, Patrick
  • Wintr, Ladislav
Abstract
This paper studies the behaviour of Internet prices. It compares price rigidities on the Internet and in traditional brick-and-mortar stores and provides a cross-country perspective. The data set covers a broad range of items typically sold over the Internet. It includes more than 5 million daily price quotes downloaded from price comparison web sites in France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US. The following results emerge from our analysis. First, and contrary to the recent findings for common CPI data, Internet prices in the EU countries do not change less often than online prices in the US. Second, prices on the Internet are not necessarily more flexible than prices in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Third, there is substantial heterogeneity in the frequency of price change across shop types and product categories. Fourth, the average price change on the Internet is relatively large, but smaller than the respective values reported for CPI data. Finally, panel logit estimates suggest that the likelihood of observing a price change is a function of both state- and time-dependent factors. JEL Classification: E31, L11

Suggested Citation

  • Lünnemann, Patrick & Wintr, Ladislav, 2006. "Are internet prices sticky?," Working Paper Series 645, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2006645
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    2. Luboš Komárek & Filip Rozsypal, 2009. "Vymezení a vyhodnocení agresivity centrálních bank [Definition and Evaluation of the Central Bank agresivity]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2009(3), pages 383-404.
    3. Ernst Glatzer & Fabio Rumler, 2007. "Price Setting in Austria before and after the Euro Cash Changeover: Has Anything Changed in the Last Five Years?," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 1, pages 85-99.
    4. Emmanuel Dhyne & Jerzy Konieczny & Fabio Rumler & Patrick Sevestre, 2009. "Price rigidity in the euro area - An assessment," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 380, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    5. Attakrit Leckcivilize, 2019. "The Movement and Change in Online Price Within and Across Selected Major Retail Stores in Thailand," PIER Discussion Papers 105, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Sara Ellison & Christopher M. Snyder & Hongkai Zhang, 2016. "Costs of Managerial Attention and Activity as a Source of Sticky Prices: Structural Estimates from an Online Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 6285, CESifo.
    7. Anson, José & Boffa, Mauro & Helble, Matthias, 2014. "A Short-Run Analysis of Exchange Rates and International Trade with an Application to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan," ADBI Working Papers 471, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    8. Klenow, Peter J. & Malin, Benjamin A., 2010. "Microeconomic Evidence on Price-Setting," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 6, pages 231-284, Elsevier.
    9. Luis J. Álvarez & Emmanuel Dhyne & Marco Hoeberichts & Claudia Kwapil & Hervé Le Bihan & Patrick Lünnemann & Fernando Martins & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl & Philip Vermeulen & Jouko Vilmunen, 2006. "Sticky Prices in the Euro Area: A Summary of New Micro-Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 575-584, 04-05.
    10. Anderton, Robert & Jarvis, Valerie & Labhard, Vincent & Morgan, Julian & Petroulakis, Filippos & Vivian, Lara, 2020. "Virtually everywhere? Digitalisation and the euro area and EU economies," Occasional Paper Series 244, European Central Bank.
    11. Robert Somogyi & Janos Vincze, 2011. "Price Rigidity and Strategic Uncertainty An Agent-based Approach," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1135, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    internet; price setting behaviour; price stickiness;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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