Temporal Distribution of Price Changes : Staggering in the Large and Synchronization in the Small

Temporal distribution of individual price changes is of crucial importance for business cycle theory and for the micro-foundations of price adjustment. While it is routinely assumed that price changes are staggered over time, both theory and evidence are ambiguous. We use a large Belgian data set to analyze whether price changes are staggered or synchronized. We find that the more aggregate the data, the closer the distribution to perfect staggering. This result holds for both aggregation across goods and across locations. Our results provide support for Bhaskar’s (2002) model of synchronized adjustment within, and staggered adjustment across, industries.staggering, synchronization, aggregation, price setting

Temporal Distribution of Price Changes: Staggering in the Large and Synchronization in the Small

Temporal distribution of individual price changes is of crucial importance for business cycle theory and for the microfoundations of price adjustment. While it is routinely assumed that price changes are staggered over time, both theory and evidence are ambiguous. We use a large Belgian data set to analyze whether price changes are staggered or synchronized. We find that the more aggregated are the data, the closer is the distribution to perfect staggering. This result holds both for aggregation across goods, and across locations. Our results provide support for BhaskarÕs (2002) model of synchronized adjustment within, and staggered adjustment across, industries.

Public health security in crisis situations. Basic Premises and strategic objectives

In recent years the approach to public health has changed, making the adoption of a uniform definition difficult. This is forced by the growing number of extraordinary dangers: terrorist attacks, natural disasters, dangerous invading microbial and virus diseases, bioterrorist, chemical and radiation threats, transport accidents and disasters. These threats create crisis situations which are very complicated and define new challenges for the authorities and public health leaders as well as for officials and health inspectors. In the speculation below, an attempt has been made to present a new pyramid of leadership in the public health sector in crisis situations, the assumptions and strategic objectives of a health security strategy are stated

Polygraph examination in analysis of evidence

"I assume that a polygraph examination may be part of mass of evidence in a specific case, and I also assume that the result of a polygraph examination belongs to forensic evidence, and within it has its place in expert evidence. Therefore, as item of evidence, it can be subjected to an analysis covering the assessment of its credibility, reliability, weigh, probative force, etc., and can also be analysed as evidential argument. Such an argument may be evaluated from two points of view: “internal” developed by its creator (in this case: by the expert), and “external” whose author is the analyst, or, more generally speaking, the addressee of the argument. Th e “internal” analysis is presented in (Ibek 2011). Th is article, in turn, aims at presenting the characteristic features of a polygraph examination result as argument in analysis of evidence."(...

Selected aspects of uncertainty in polygraph examination

From introduction: "The diagnostic process in polygraph testing involves a comparison between the intensity of the response registered to one type of question – so-called relevant questions – with the intensity of response registered to another type of question, such as control questions, probable lie questions, neutral questions, etc., depending of the technique employed."(...

An attempt to falsify the results of a polygraph test through the implementation of false memory: a case study

"The remains of a level crossing attendant that had been working alone at night were found in the crossing service building at the intersection a railroad right-of-way and a highway.. The post-mortem and the investigation of the scene indicated that the woman suffered several knife wounds. It was also established that the perpetrator fled the scene after having destroyed the crossing’s telephone and disabling the signal lamp located in front of the building."(...

Inflation and Price Setting in a Natural Experiment

We analyze the behaviour of prices using a large disaggregated data set for Poland during transition from a planned to a market economy. The size of price changes and the frequency of adjustment both fall as the inflation rate declines. Price setters follow a mixture of state- and time-contingent policies. We find that price setters are forward-looking. Intermarket price variability increases with inflation and the effect of expected inflation is much stronger than the effect of unexpected inflation. So the bottom line is this: it takes sellers of sausage, eggs, toothpaste, vacuum cleaners, car-wash operators etc. just a few years to figure out how to adjust prices in a market environment. Our results support both the menu cost, and the rational expectations, hypotheses.

Regular adjustment: theory and evidence

We ask why, in many circumstances and many environments, decision-makers choose to act on a time-regular basis (e.g. adjust every six weeks) or on a stateregular basis (e.g. set prices ending in a 9), even though such an approach appears suboptimal. The paper attributes regular behaviour to adjustment cost heterogeneity. We show that, given the cost heterogeneity, the likelihood of adopting regular policies depends on the shape of the benefit function: the flatter it is, the more likely, ceteris paribus, is regular adjustment. We provide sufficient conditions under which, when policymakers differ with respect to the shape of the benefit function (as in Konieczny and Skrzypacz, 2006), the frequency of adjustments across markets is negatively correlated with the incidence of regular adjustments. On the other hand, if policymakers differences are due to the level of adjustment costs (as in Dotsey, King and Wolman, 1999), then the correlation is positive. To test the model we apply it to optimal pricing policies. We use a large Austrian data set, which consists of the direct price information collected by the statistical office and covers 80% of the CPI over eight years. We run cross-sectional tests, regressing the proportion of attractive prices and, separately, the excess proportion of price changes at the beginning of a year and at the beginning of a quarter, on various conditional frequencies of adjustment, inflation and its variability, dummies for good types, and other relevant variables. We find that the lower is, in a given market, the conditional frequency of price changes, the higher is the incidence of time- and state-regular adjustment. JEL Classification: E31, L11, E52, D01attractive prices, menu costs, Optimal pricing