Thomas Y. Mathä

The Pricing Behaviour of Firms in the Euro Area: New Survey Evidence

This study investigates the pricing behaviour of firms in the euro area on the basis of surveys conducted by nine Eurosystem national central banks. Overall, more than 11,000 firms participated in the survey. The results are very robust across countries. Firms operate in monopolistically competitive markets, where prices are mostly set following mark-up rules and where price discrimination is a common practice. Our evidence suggests that both time- and state-dependent pricing strategies are applied by firms in the euro area: around one-third of the companies follow mainly time-dependent pricing rules while two-thirds use pricing rules with some element of statedependence. Although the majority of firms take into account a wide range of information, including past and expected economic developments, about one-third adopts a purely backward-looking behaviour. The pattern of results lends support to the recent wave of estimations of hybrid versions of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve. Price stickiness arises both at the stage when firms review their prices and again when they actually change prices. The most relevant factors underlying price rigidity are customer relationships – as expressed in the theories about explicit and implicit contracts – and thus, are mainly found at the price changing (second) stage of the price adjustment process. Finally, we provide evidence that firms adjust prices asymmetrically in response to shocks, depending on the direction of the adjustment and the source of the shock: while cost shocks have a greater impact when prices have to be raised than when they have to be reduced, reductions in demand are more likely to induce a price change than increases in demand.

Commuting flows across bordering regions: a note

This article analyses the bilateral commuting flows across bordering regions of four European Union countries. The results suggest that aggregate cross-border commuting increases as the asymmetries in income per capita and the unemployment rate increase. Commuting time or distance and language differences between the bordering regions impede cross-border commuting.

Mean reversion and sales

This article analyses the degree of inflation persistence in the EU15 using disaggregate HICP price indices. The results, based on a nonparametric measure proposed by Marques (2004) suggest a very moderate degree of median and mean inflation persistence. The modified treatment of sales in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices tends to reduce the measured degree of inflation persistence.

Rigidities and inflation persistence of services and regulated prices

This paper studies price level rigidity and inflation persistence for EU15 member states using data on more than 1500 HICP sub-indices. Services and HICP sub-indices subject to price regulation exhibit a higher degree of price rigidity, with less frequent but larger index changes and a stronger asymmetry between increases and decreases. For most countries as well as for the EU15 and the euro area aggregates, excluding services from the HICP leads to a lower measured degree of inflation persistence; a similar though smaller effect is obtained by removing regulated indices from the HICP. Copyright

Wealth differences across borders and the effect of real estate price dynamics: Evidence from two household surveys

Crossing borders, be it international or regional, often go togther with price wage or indeed wealth discontinuities. This paper identifies substantial wealth differences between Luxembourg resident households and cross-border commuter households despite their similar incomes. The av-erage (median) net wealth difference is estimated to be €367,000 (€129,000) and increases for higher percentiles. Using several different regression and decomposition techniques, spatial (regional) dif-ferences in real estate price developments, and thus differences in accumulated nominal capital gains are shown to be one main driving factor for these wealth differences. Other factors contribut-ing to the observed wealth differences are differences in age, income, education and other house-hold characteristics.