New Facts on Consumer Price Rigidity in the Euro Area

• Authors: Pau Roldan-Blanco.
• macroeconomics
• American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

Using CPI microdata for 11 euro area countries over 2010–2019, we document new findings on consumer price rigidity in the euro area: (i) the average frequency of price changes is 12 percent; (ii) the distribution of price changes is highly dispersed, with frequent large and small changes; (iii) price changes are more frequent in January; and (iv) the overall size of price changes rises with inflation, but their frequency does not; these changes in the size are driven by movements in the fraction of price changes that are increases, not by the absolute size of price increases or decreases.