Price Setting with Menu Cost for Multi-Product Firms

66 Pages Posted: 25 Mar 2012 Last revised: 23 Jun 2023

See all articles by Fernando Alvarez

Fernando Alvarez

University of Chicago - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Francesco Lippi

Università degli Studi di Sassari; Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 2012

Abstract

We model the decisions of a multi-product firm that faces a fixed "menu" cost: once it is paid, the firm can adjust the price of all its products. We characterize analytically the steady state firm's decisions in terms of the structural parameters: the variability of the flexible prices, the curvature of the profit function, the size of the menu cost, and the number of products sold. We provide expressions for the steady state frequency of adjustment, the hazard rate of price adjustments, and the size distribution of price changes, all in terms of the structural parameters. We study analytically the impulse response of aggregate prices and output to a monetary shock. The size of the output response and its duration increase with the number of products, they more than double as the number of products goes from 1 to ten, quickly converging to the ones of Taylor's staggered price model.

Suggested Citation

Alvarez, Fernando and Lippi, Francesco, Price Setting with Menu Cost for Multi-Product Firms (March 2012). NBER Working Paper No. w17923, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2028258

Fernando Alvarez (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Department of Economics ( email )

1126 East 59th Street
Social Science Building, Room 442
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-4412 (Phone)
773-702-8490 (Fax)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Francesco Lippi

Università degli Studi di Sassari ( email )

Piazza Universita
Sassari, 07100
Italy

Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF) ( email )

Via Due Macelli, 73
Rome, 00187
Italy