Download or read book Competition and Price Adjustment in the Euro Area written by Luis Julián Álvarez González and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper explores the role of a number of factors in explaining the heterogeneity in the degree of price stickiness across industries, on the basis of the information provided by surveys on pricing behavior conducted in nine euro area countries. The main focus is placed on the influence of competition on the degree of price flexibility. Our results suggest that the price setting strategies of the most competitive firms give them a greater capacity to react to shocks and make, in practice, for greater flexibility in their prices. The direct influence of market competition on price flexibility is corroborated by a cross-country cross-industry econometric analysis based on the information provided by surveys. This analysis also shows that the cost structure and demand conditions help to explain the degree of price flexibility. Finally, it suggests that countries in which product market regulation is more relevant are characterized by less price flexibility. [resumen de autor]
Download or read book Competition and Price Adjustment in the Euro Area written by Luis Julián Alvarez González and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pricing Decisions in the Euro Area written by Silvia Fabiani and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-25 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects results from ad hoc surveys on firms pricing behavior conducted in 2003 and 2004 by nine National central banks of the Euro area in the context of a joint research project (Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network). These surveys have proved to be an efficient way to test theories on the pricing strategies of economic agents, documenting, in qualitative terms, the underlying rationale of the observed pricing patterns. The book provides an unprecedented amount of information from more than 11,000 euro area firms, addressing issues such as the relevance of nominal and real rigidities, the information set used by firms in the price setting process, the strategy followed to review prices, the frequency of both price reviews and price changes, the reasons underlying price stickiness, and asymmetries in price adjustment. It also compares results for the euro area to those obtained for other countries by similar studies. Finally, it draws the main implications for theoretical modeling and for monetary policy.
Download or read book How Governments Should Support the Adjustment of Competitiveness in the Euro Area And How They Should Not written by Holger Zemanek and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In addition to unsustainable fiscal policies, the weak competitiveness of southern European countries is contributing to the ongoing crisis in the euro area. However, wages and productivity are only one element of competitiveness and the value of competitive wages is hard to measure. Hard-to-identify non-price competitiveness such as quality, innovation and technology of goods affects overall competitiveness too. Given the lack of information, the necessary level of wage adjustment needs to be negotiated on the market. Governments can support a market based adjustment of competitiveness by liberalising labour markets and by strengthening the business environment.
Download or read book Sticky Prices in the Euro Area written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Surveillance of Intra euro area written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Adjustment in the euro area and regulation of product and labour markets an empirical assessment written by Pietro Biroli and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This paper assesses the adjustment mechanism in the euro area. Results show that the real exchange rate (REER) adjusts in such a way to redress cyclical divergences and that after monetary unification REER dynamics have become less reactive to country-specific shocks but also less persistent. It is found that regulations, notably affecting price and wage nominal flexibility and employment protection, play a role in the adjustment mechanism. Indicators of product and labour regulations appear to matter for both the reaction of price competitiveness to cyclical divergences (differences between national and euro-area output gaps) and for the inertia of competitiveness indicators. Moreover, regulations appear to matter also for the extent to which common shocks may end up producing country-specific effects on the price competitiveness, as revealed by their interaction with proxies of unobservable common shocks along the lines of the methodology developed in Blanchard and Wolfers (2000). In light of the tendency towards less stringent regulations in past decades, the results seem consistent with the observed reduction in the persistence of inflation differentials, and has have implications for the design of adjustment-friendly product and labour market reforms."--Publication information p.
Download or read book Price Adjustment in the Euro Area in the Low inflation Period written by Erwan Gautier and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper documents five stylised facts relating to price adjustment in the euro area, using various micro price datasets collected in a period with relatively low and stable inflation. First, price changes are infrequent in the core sectors. On average, 12% of consumer prices change each month, falling to 8.5% when sales prices are excluded. The frequency of producer price adjustment is greater (25%), reflecting that the prices of intermediate goods and energy are more flexible. For both consumer and producer prices, cross-sectoral heterogeneity is more pronounced than cross-country heterogeneity. Second, price changes tend to be large and heterogeneous. For consumer prices, the typical absolute price change is about 10%, and the distribution of price changes shows a broad dispersion. For producer prices, the typical absolute price change is smaller, but nevertheless larger than inflation. Third, price setting is mildly state-dependent: the probability of price adjustment rises with the size of price misalignment, mainly reflecting idiosyncratic shocks, but it does not increase very sharply. Fourth, for both consumer and producer prices, the repricing rate showed no trend in the period 2005-19 but was more volatile in the short run. Fifth, small cyclical variations in frequency did not contribute much to fluctuations in aggregate inflation, which instead mainly reflected shifts in the average size of price changes. Consistent with idiosyncratic shocks as the main driver of price changes, aggregate disturbances affected inflation by shifting the relative number of firms increasing or decreasing their prices, rather than the size of price increases and decreases.
Download or read book The Role of Price and Cost Competitiveness for Intra and Extra euro Area Trade of Euro Area Countries written by Elena Bobeica and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper studies the importance of price and cost competitiveness for intra- and extra-euro area trade flows of euro area countries. A standard error correction framework shows that price competitiveness is a relatively more important driver of trade flows outside the euro area as compared to those within the monetary union, especially for exports, that tend to be more sensitive to relative prices than imports. We consider various measures of competitiveness and conclude that it is difficult to single out one that outperforms the others; based on an encompassing test, measures based on labour costs appear to contain relatively more information for trade flows, particularly for exports outside the euro area. The key policy implication is that to adjust competitiveness disequilibria within the monetary union, measures besides those aimed at price and cost adjustments should be pursued in the deficit countries, such as structural policies fostering non-price competitiveness.
Download or read book Food Price Dynamics and Price Adjustment in the EU written by Steve McCorriston and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the important issue of food prices across EU Member States. Although recent attention has focused on events in world commodity markets following the spikes in world prices in 2007-2008 and 2011, there has been comparatively little attention addressing food price dynamics at the retail level. This volume addresses the characteristics of retail food price behaviour and the nature and drivers of price transmission across the EU. There are several inter-related features of the research reported here. First, the volume reports the characteristics of retail food inflation across the EU and the extent to which it differs from non-food inflation. Second, given the different experience of food inflation across EU Member States, it details the process of price transmission as shocks from upstream and world markets are passed through the food sector to the retail stage. Third, it addresses how the extent and nature of price transmission is determined by various aspects of competition throughout the domestic food sector and how the nature of vertical contracting between stages can determine the price transmission process. Finally, it outlines the potential of high-frequency, product-specific scanner data to address price dynamics and adjustment issues and how scanner data can also be used to measure food price inflation. The book will be of interest to researchers on price transmission and competition issues in the EU and, given the wider interest on these issues coupled with the novel use of scanner data, to researchers further afield. The contributions will also be of interest to policymakers and stakeholders as they seek to make sense of, and to address, regulation issues as they relate to the food sector.
Download or read book International Productivity Monitor written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-17 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 32nd issue of the International Productivity Monitor is a special issue produced in collaboration with the OECD. All articles published in this issue were selected from papers presented at the First Annual Conference of the OECD Global Forum on Productivity held in Lisbon, Portugal, July ...
Download or read book The Great Trade Collapse Causes Consequences and Prospects written by Richard E. Baldwin and published by CEPR. This book was released on 2009 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Authoritarian Neoliberalism written by Ian Bruff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authoritarian Neoliberalism explores how neoliberal forms of managing capitalism are challenging democratic governance at local, national and international levels. Identifying a spectrum of policies and practices that seek to reproduce neoliberalism and shield it from popular and democratic contestation, contributors provide original case studies that investigate the legal-administrative, social, coercive and corporate dimensions of authoritarian neoliberalism across the global North and South. They detail the crisis-ridden intertwinement of authoritarian statecraft and neoliberal reforms, and trace the transformation of key societal sites in capitalism (e.g. states, households, workplaces, urban spaces) through uneven yet cumulative processes of neoliberalization. Informed by innovative conceptual and methodological approaches, Authoritarian Neoliberalism uncovers how inequalities of power are produced and reproduced in capitalist societies, and highlights how alternatives to neoliberalism can be formulated and pursued. The book was originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.
Download or read book Euro Area Policies written by International Monetary Fund. European Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper focuses on the convergence performance of euro area countries before and after euro introduction. The analysis compares per capita incomes across countries, both for the initial group of twelve countries that adopted the euro before 2002 (the so-called EA-12) as well as the current group of 19 euro area members (EA-19). The convergence process has stalled since the introduction of the euro, except for new euro area members which reduced their income gaps vis-à-vis the founding members until their adoption of the common currency. The convergence of income levels is not a prerequisite for a functioning monetary union, but has been considered an important objective of the European economic integration process. Lagging productivity growth in countries with lower initial GDP per capita is found to be the main explanation for the lack of convergence, suggesting that structural reforms can help to restart the convergence process.
Download or read book OECD Economic Surveys Euro Area 2012 written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: OECD's 2012 Economic Survey of the Euro examines recent economic developments, policy and prospects. In addition it includes special chapters cover Euro Area imbalances and Euro Area governance and structural reforms and their short-term impact.
Download or read book How Product Market Reforms Lubricate Shock Adjustment in the Euro Area written by Jacques Pelkmans and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 10 years of experience with the euro, few would dispute that the euro and the euro area fared much better than many observers expected (see e.g European Commission, 2008, for a very detailed account and analysis). However, this does not mean that some policy concerns have not lingered on. One prominent concern on which analysts, defenders, advocates and diehard opponents agree is the fear of a too weak adjustment capacity of the euro area. The present essay deals with one element of adjustment in the absence of national exchange rates and monetary policies, namely, the functioning of product markets as improved by reforms. One amongst several questions which preoccupy policy-makers in the eurozone is the rather unequal and (overall) insufficient ability of eurozone countries to adjust to asymmetric shocks, or, to common shocks with asymmetric effects. As is well-known, in a monetary union, monetary policy and, by implication (national) exchange rate policy, are no longer available for individual countries, so that alternative channels of adjustment have to be relied upon. The better these work, the greater the ability to adjust i.e. the lower the costs of adjustment to such shocks. Such abilities to adjust are a complex function of a range of options, including fiscal responses, temporary financial capital flows and market flexibilities, distinct as to countries and varying over time or case by case. This essay will zoom in on the "lubrication" of adjustment brought about by well-functioning markets. In particular, it deals with the subset of what are called "product market reforms" (comprising goods and services markets) meant to improve market functioning and thereby helping to facilitate adjustment processes in EMU. Other markets matter, too, such as labour, financial, housing and land markets but these will not be dealt with, except in passing and with some attention for the link (both substitutability and complementarity) with labour markets. -- EU Bookshop.
Download or read book The Theory of Industrial Organization written by Jean Tirole and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1988-08-26 with total page 1482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Theory of Industrial Organization is the first primary text to treat the new industrial organization at the advanced-undergraduate and graduate level. Rigorously analytical and filled with exercises coded to indicate level of difficulty, it provides a unified and modern treatment of the field with accessible models that are simplified to highlight robust economic ideas while working at an intuitive level. To aid students at different levels, each chapter is divided into a main text and supplementary section containing more advanced material. Each chapter opens with elementary models and builds on this base to incorporate current research in a coherent synthesis. Tirole begins with a background discussion of the theory of the firm. In Part I he develops the modern theory of monopoly, addressing single product and multi product pricing, static and intertemporal price discrimination, quality choice, reputation, and vertical restraints. In Part II, Tirole takes up strategic interaction between firms, starting with a novel treatment of the Bertrand-Cournot interdependent pricing problem. He studies how capacity constraints, repeated interaction, product positioning, advertising, and asymmetric information affect competition or tacit collusion. He then develops topics having to do with long term competition, including barriers to entry, contestability, exit, and research and development. He concludes with a "game theory user's manual" and a section of review exercises. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book is missing some of the images found in the physical edition.
