Imperfect Competition, Sticky Prices, and Firm Specific Menu Costs

这项计划资助研究将扩展研究者在1989年芝加哥大学的论文中所做的研究。本文考察了不同市场结构对商业银行价格调整行为的影响。该论文的主要发现是：(1)价格刚性（或行为）的很大一部分差异不能用市场结构的差异来解释；(2)单个企业价格刚性模式的市场内变化非常显著。后一项发现促使人们寻找一种理论来解释市场内或企业特定的价格调整行为，并导致人们考虑到“新凯恩斯主义”经济学关于不完全竞争和昂贵的价格调整的文献。大多数现有文献都只关注“市场”特征来解释价格刚性模式的差异。本项目将把“企业”特征作为分析企业价格调整行为的相关变量。这种从市场到企业具体分析的延伸对于理解和确定粘性价格的原因非常重要。因此，它对于全面分析工资和价格僵化导致的全经济资源错配也至关重要。具体而言，该奖项将用于：(1)审查价格刚性文献，(2)开发关于价格调整的企业特定成本的可测试假设，以及(3)开始开发易于处理的经验模型来测试这些假设。这些模型将侧重于商业银行及其作为金融中介机构的角色。然而，这一结果将对其他行业乃至整个经济产生影响。

This planning grant research will extend a study done in the investigator's University of Chicago 1989 dissertation. That dissertation examined the impact of differing market structures on the price adjustment behavior of commercial banks. The major findings of that dissertation were: (1) a major proportion of the differences in pricing rigidity (or behavior) was not explained by differences in market structure, and (2) intramarket variation in the price rigidity patterns of individual firms was very significant. This latter finding motivated a search for a theory to explain intramarket, or firm specific, price adjustment behavior, and led to a consideration of the "New Keynesian" economics literature on imperfect competition and costly price adjustment. Most of this existing literature has focussed exclusively on "market" characteristics to explain differences in price rigidity patterns. This project will focus on "firm" characteristics as the relevant variable in analyzing the price adjustment behavior of firms. This extension from market to firm specific analysis is very important in understanding and identifying the causes of sticky prices. As such, it is also crucial for developing a complete analysis of the economy-wide misallocation of resources imposed by wage and price rigidities. Specifically, the award will be used to: (1) review the price rigidity literature, (2) develop testable hypotheses about firm specific costs of price adjustment, and (3) begin developing tractable empirical models to test these hypotheses. These models will focus on commercial banks and their role as financial intermediaries. However, the results will have implications for other industries, and the economy as a whole.