Rigid Prices: Evidence From U.S. Scanner Data (original) (raw)

Price rigidity in the Italian grocery retailing sector: evidence from scanner data

2012

This paper provides an empirical evidence on the relevance of price rigidity in the grocery-retailing sector and on the role of some major determinants of food price rigidity. The analysis is based on a comprehensive weekly scanner dataset from large grocery-retailers for three product groups: dried semola pasta, extra virgin oil olive and tomato pulp. These products represent an important share of italian households food consumptions and they are sold by large and small-medium size manufacturers. We observe a large price heterogeneity at regional level that depends, not only on market structure, but also on consumers preferences: local brands play a major role in the South of Italy respect to the North, where indeed national brands and also private label are more developed. The concentration of Grocery Retailing Sector in italian regions influence many aspects of the supply structure: it appears negative correlate with the number of products available to consumers and positive corr...

Retail Pricing Format and Rigidity of Regular Prices

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021

We study different notions of sale and regular prices, and their variability with store pricing - formats. We us e data from three large stores with different pricing - formats (EDLP /Hi- Lo/Hybrid) that are located within 1 - km radius. Importantly, the data contain both the actual transaction prices and the actual regular prices as displayed on the store shelves. We combine these data with two “generated” regular price series and study their rigidity. Regular - price rigidity varies with store - formats because different format stores define regular - prices differently. Correspondingly, the meaning of price - cuts var ies across store - formats. To interpret the findings, we consider the store pricing format distribution across the US.

Price Flexibility in Channels of Distribution: Evidence from Scanner Data

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 2002

In this study, we empirically examine the extent of price rigidity using a unique store-level time-series data set – consisting of (i) actual retail transaction prices, (ii) actual wholesale transaction prices which represent both the retailers’ costs and the prices received by manufacturers, and (iii) a measure of manufacturers’ costs – for 12 goods in two widely used consumer product categories. We simultaneously examine the extent of price rigidity for each of the 12 products at both, final goods and intermediate goods levels. We study two notions of price rigidity employed in the existing literature: (i) the frequency of price changes, and (ii) the response of prices to exogenous cost changes. We find that retail prices exhibit remarkable flexibility in terms of both notions of price rigidity, i.e., they change frequently and they seem to respond quickly and fully to cost changes. Furthermore, we find that retail prices respond not just to their direct costs, but also to the upstream manufacturers’ costs, which further reinforces the extent of the retail price flexibility. At the intermediate goods level of the market, in contrast, we find relatively more evidence of rigidity in the response of manufacturers prices to cost changes. This despite the fact that wholesale prices change frequently and therefore exhibit flexibility according to the first notion of price rigidity.