Harvard University - Department of Economics

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Working Papers

• "The Distribution of the Size of Price Changes". Joint with Roberto Rigobon. April 2010.

• "Argentina: Inflation and Lies" . March 2010.

Job Market Paper

• "Scraped Data and Sticky Prices: Frequency, Hazards, and Synchronization", November 2009 - Appendix -

This paper introduces scraped online data to study price stickiness in developing countries. Scraped data constitute a unique source of price information in terms of detail, sampling frequency, and country availability, allowing simultaneous cross-country analyses in a variety of macroeconomic settings. Using a dataset with more than 21 million prices in four Latin American countries during a time of high inflation (from October 2007 to October 2008), I present patterns of price stickiness yielding three main empirical results. First, the distributions of the size of price changes are bimodal, with few changes close to zero, as predicted by menu cost models. Second, hazard functions are upward-sloping or hump-shaped in all countries, consistent with state-dependent pricing. Third, there is strong daily price synchronization within narrow categories, suggesting that strategic complementarities play an important role in price-setting decisions. These results differ considerably from previous findings in the literature and highlight the importance of studying stickiness across different macroeconomic settings.

Published Papers

• "Sudden Stops: Determinants and Output Effects in the First Era of Globalization, 1880-1913"
Joint with Michael Bordo and Christopher Meissner. Journal of Development Economics, Volume 91, Issue 2, Pages 185-364. March 2010.

• "Are Crises Good for Growth? The Role of Political Institutions"
Joint with Eduardo Cavallo. Journal of Macroeconomics Forthcoming 2010.
Download WP version: IDB Working Paper 643

 

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