美联储-美国疫情后的价格灵活性：价格设定模型的证据和启示（英）

Finance and Economics Discussion SeriesFederal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C.ISSN 1936-2854 (Print)ISSN 2767-3898 (Online)Post-Pandemic Price Flexibility in the U.S.: Evidence andImplications for Price Setting ModelsHugh Montag and Daniel Villar2025-024Please cite this paper as:Montag, Hugh, and Daniel Villar (2025).“Post-Pandemic Price Flexibility in the U.S.:Evidence and Implications for Price Setting Models,” Finance and Economics Discus-sion Series 2025-024.Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,https://doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2025.024.NOTE: Staff working papers in the Finance and Economics Discussion Series (FEDS) are preliminarymaterials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment. The analysis and conclusions set forthare those of the authors and do not indicate concurrence by other members of the research staff or theBoard of Governors. References in publications to the Finance and Economics Discussion Series (other thanacknowledgement) should be cleared with the author(s) to protect the tentative character of these papers.Post-Pandemic Price Flexibility in the U.S.: Evidenceand Implications for Price Setting Models∗Hugh Montag and Daniel VillarAbstractUsing the micro data underlying the U.S. CPI, we document several findings aboutfirm price-setting behavior during and following the Covid-19 pandemic, a period withthe highest levels of inflation seen in around forty years. 1) The frequency of pricechange increased substantially as inflation took off, and has declined markedly as infla-tion has receded. 2) The average size of price changes also increased as price increasesbecame more common, while the absolute value changed little. 3) The dispersion ofprice changes did not fall, contrary to the prediction of state-dependent models 4) Amenu cost model fitted on pre-pandemic pricing data has difficulty matching the in-crease in the frequency of price changes post-pandemic, which was not the case forthe high inflation period of the 1980s. A re-calibrated menu cost model with smallermenu costs and larger idiosyncratic shocks can match the elevated frequency seen inthe post-pandemic period, but not the movements in the dispersion of price changes.Such a model also implies a faster pass-through of shocks to inflation than the modelfitted to pre-pandemic data.JEL Codes: D40, E31, D22∗The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of theBureau of Labor Statistics, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, or the Federal Reserve System.This paper replaces the earlier BLS Working Paper 547 published in 2022. Daniel Villar accessed the CPImicrodata through the BLS outside researcher program (https://www.bls.gov/rda/home.htm). Brad Akin,CPI project coordinator, reviewed the statistics involved in the model estimation and cleared them for releaseon October 11, 2024. We thank Oleksiy Kryvtsov and seminar participants at the federal Reserve Boardfor comments. A previou