Abstract

Macroeconomists traditionally ignore temporary price markdowns (“sales”) under the assumption that they are unrelated to aggregate phenomena. We revisit this view. First, we provide robust evidence from the U.K. and U.S. CPI micro data that the frequency of sales is strongly countercyclical, as much as doubling during the Great Recession. Second, we build a general equilibrium model in which cyclical sales arise endogenously as retailers try to attract bargain hunters. The calibrated model fits well the business cycle co-movement of sales with consumption and hours worked, and the strong substitution between market work and shopping time documented in the time-use literature. The model predicts that after a monetary contraction, the heightened use of discounts by firms amplifies the fall in the aggregate price level, attenuating by a third the one-year response of real consumption.

中文翻译：

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销售的周期性和总价格的灵活性

摘要

传统上，宏观经济学家会忽略暂时的降价（“销售”），前提是它们与总体现象无关。我们重新审视这种观点。首先，我们从英国和美国CPI微观数据中提供了有力的证据，表明销售频率强烈反周期，在大萧条期间是两倍。其次，我们建立了一个一般均衡模型，在这种模型中，当零售商试图吸引逢低买入者时，周期性销售是内生的。校准后的模型非常适合销售与消费和工作时间之间的业务周期协同变化，并且在时间使用文献中记录了市场工作与购物时间之间的强烈替代。该模型预测，在货币紧缩之后，企业对折扣的使用增加会加剧总价格水平的下降，