Pascal Seiler


Last Name

Seiler

First Name

Pascal

ORCID

0000-0003-3764-9287

Organisational unit

06331 - KOF FB Konjunkturumfragen / KOF Business Tendency Surveys

Search Results

Publications1 - 10 of 75
  • From Micro Data to Macro Insights: Understanding Price Rigidity, Inflation, and Monetary Policy
    Item type: Doctoral Thesis
    Seiler, Pascal (2024)
    This dissertation is a collection of four research articles on the price-setting behavior of firms and its implications for inflation and monetary policy. It begins with an introduction that summarizes each article and highlights its contribution to macroeconomics in general and monetary economics in particular. The subsequent sections present the articles in full. The first chapter, co-authored with Barbara Rudolf, provides new evidence on price rigidity at the product level based on microdata underlying the Swiss consumer price index from 2008 to 2022. We find that the frequency of price changes has increased in the decade leading up to the pandemic and accelerated thereafter. While much of the increase before the pandemic occurred in products where collection switched to online prices, the increase during the post-pandemic inflation surge was broad-based. In assessing the contributions of the extensive and intensive margins of price adjustment to variations in inflation, we find that the time variation in inflation is mainly due to variations in the frequency of both price increases and price decreases. We also find that price changes tend to be synchronized within stores rather than across stores. This chapter is based on an earlier version that appeared as ECB Working Paper and SNB Working Paper. The second chapter, co-authored with Barbara Rudolf, builds on the previous chapter and uses the same microdata to examine the sources of time variation in price-setting behavior and its implications for monetary non-neutrality. By recovering time-varying parameters from estimating a multi-sector menu cost model sequentially over time, we find that changes in the time-dependent Calvo mechanism have affected price rigidity more than changes in menu costs. Both the cumulated impulse response functions of output to monetary policy shocks simulated from our model and a complementary measure of monetary non-neutrality derived directly from the microdata suggest that the changes in price adjustment patterns have reduced the real effects of monetary policy over our sample from 2008 to 2022. Using both measures to identify states with lower and higher degrees of monetary non-neutrality in nonlinear local projections, we provide empirical evidence that time variation in monetary non-neutrality gives rise to nonlinearities in the transmission of monetary policy, with monetary shocks affecting economic activity and prices differently depending on the degree of non-neutrality. The third chapter is a single-authored essay that analyzes the nonlinear effects of monetary policy across states of price rigidity. Consumer prices in the United Kingdom exhibit distinct cyclical patterns over the past thirty years, with more frequent price changes in recessions than in expansions, and the frequency of price changes increases with inflation. Using these patterns to inform nonlinear local projection models of states of flexible and rigid price adjustment, I find that economic activity responds more strongly and prices more slowly to monetary policy shocks in periods of rigid compared to flexible prices. In particular, economic activity shows no significant response to contractionary monetary policy shocks when price adjustments are frequent, while inflation falls rapidly. Under rigid price adjustment, however, real gross domestic product exhibits a significant decline, while prices respond only sluggishly. This provides microfounded evidence for the state dependence of monetary policy on the price-setting behavior of firms. The fourth chapter, co-authored with Peter Karadi, Juergen Amann, Javier S\'anchez Bachiller, and Jesse Wursten, compares supermarket price setting in the US and the euro area and assesses its impact on food inflation. We introduce a novel scanner dataset of Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Italy and contrast it with an equivalent dataset from the United States. We find that both higher frequency and stronger state dependence of price changes contribute to the higher flexibility of supermarket inflation in the United States relative to the euro area. We argue that the driving force behind both factors is higher cross-sectional volatility in the US. Larger product-level fluctuations both force retailers to adjust prices more frequently and increase price misalignments, increasing the selection of large price changes. A mildly state-dependent price-setting model well represents both facts, and they jointly explain over a third of the difference in food-inflation volatility between the US and the euro area as well as around a third of the difference between the inflation responses to the COVID-19 shock in Germany and Italy. This chapter has been published in the Journal of Monetary Economics.
  • Konjunkturanalyse: Prognose 2023 / 2024. Starke Beschäftigung trifft auf stockende Wirtschaft
    Item type: Journal Article
    Sturm, Jan-Egbert; Abberger, Klaus; Anderes, Marc; et al. (2023)
    KOF Analysen
    Der vorliegende Text dokumentiert die Ergebnisse der Konjunkturprognose 2023 der Konjunkturforschungsstelle der ETH Zürich vom 15. Juni 2023. Im zweiten Kapitel folgen die wichtigsten Prognoseergebnisse für die verschiedenen Wirtschaftsbereiche, unter anderem für die bedeutendsten verwendungsseitigen Komponenten des Bruttoinlandprodukts. Das dritte Kapitel erörtert die wichtigsten Prognoseergebnisse für die Weltwirtschaft. Zuletzt folgt ein ausführlicher Datenanhang.
  • Konjunkturanalyse: Prognose 2023 / 2024. Milder Winter dämpft Rezessionsängste
    Item type: Journal Article
    Sturm, Jan-Egbert; Abberger, Klaus; Abrahamsen, Yngve; et al. (2023)
    KOF Analysen
    Der vorliegende Beitrag dokumentiert die Ergebnisse der Frühjahrsprognose 2023 der Konjunkturforschungsstelle der ETH Zürich vom 21. März 2023. Zuerst werden die jüngsten Wirtschaftsentwicklungen in der Schweiz und im Ausland diskutiert. Danach folgen die zentralen Prognoseergebnisse für die verschiedenen Wirtschaftsbereiche der Schweiz, aufgeteilt nach den wichtigsten verwendungsseitigen Komponenten des Bruttoinlandprodukts (BIP). Zuletzt folgt ein ausführlicher Datenanhang.
  • Price Setting Before and During the Pandemic: Evidence from Swiss Consumer Prices
    Item type: Other Publication
    Rudolf, Barbara; Seiler, Pascal (2023)
    SUERF Policy Brief
    We provide new evidence on price rigidity at the product level based on microdata underlying the Swiss consumer price index from 2008 to 2020. We find that the frequency of price changes has increased over the pre-pandemic period, particularly among products where collection switched to online prices, reflecting the rise of e-commerce. Furthermore, price changes tend to be synchronized within rather than across stores. Time variations in inflation can be attributed mainly to variations in the frequencies of price increases and price decreases. In the first year of the pandemic, the frequency of price adjustments changed little on average, while the frequency of temporary sales responded countercyclically to the respective demand conditions across sectors.
  • Wie bestimmen Unternehmen ihre Preise? Ergebnisse einer Ad-hoc-Umfrage in der Schweiz
    Item type: Journal Article
    Seiler, Pascal (2022)
    KOF Analysen
    Anhand einer Umfrage liefert dieser Beitrag qualitative Erkenntnisse über das Preissetzungsverhalten von Schweizer Unternehmen entlang verschiedener Phasen ihrer Preissetzung. Der Zeitpunkt von Preisüberprüfungen wird sowohl durch zeit- als auch zustandsabhängige Preisbildungsregeln bestimmt. Bei der Preisbildung berücksichtigen die Unternehmen eher aktuelle als vergangene oder erwartete künftige Entwicklungen, legen ihre Preise eher im Verhältnis zu ihren Mitbewerbern fest, als dass sie Preisaufschlagsregeln anwenden, und differenzieren ihre Preise, anstatt eine einheitliche Preisgestaltung vorzunehmen. Preisänderungen treten seltener auf als Preisüberprüfungen, sind eher innerhalb eines Unternehmens als zwischen verschiedenen Unternehmen synchronisiert und weisen eine flache, aber steigende Altersausfallsrate auf. Arbeitskosten, Preise von Zulieferern und Materialkosten sind die wichtigsten Determinanten zur Preisweitergabe, die als Reaktion auf Kosten- und Nachfrageschocks asymmetrisch ausfällt. Preisrigiditäten werden durch Kundenbeziehungen (implizite und explizite Verträge) sowie durch kostenbasierte Preisbildungsregeln bestimmt. Using a survey of Swiss companies, this paper provides qualitative evidence on price-setting behavior along different stages of price adjustment. The timing of price reviews is determined by both time-dependent and state-dependent pricing rules. In price calculations, firms consider current rather than past or expected future economic developments, determine prices relative to their competitors rather than using markup rules, and discriminate prices rather than adopting uniform pricing. Price changes occur less frequently than price reviews, are synchronized within rather than across firms, and exhibit flat but upward-sloping duration hazard. Labor costs, supplier prices, and the costs of raw materials are most important for pass-through, which is asymmetric in response to cost and demand shocks. Price rigidities are determined by customer relationships (implicit and explicit contracts) as well as cost-based pricing rules.
  • Price selection on the two sides of the Atlantic
    Item type: Other Publication
    Karadi, Peter; Amann, Juergen; Sánchez Bachiller, Javier; et al. (2023)
    VoxEU
    The effectiveness of monetary policy depends crucially on the degree of price flexibility. This flexibility depends on the frequency of price adjustments, as well as the adjustment magnitude of the prices which do change (known as price selection). This column uses granular data from the euro area and the US to quantify the degree of price selection. Accounting for price selection increases price flexibility estimates by around one-third in both regions, with a higher flexibility in the US. The findings are consistent with the differences in food inflation during the Covid-pandemic across the US and euro area.
  • Konjunkturanalyse: Prognose 2021 / 2022. Fragile Konjunkturerholung
    Item type: Journal Article
    Sturm, Jan-Egbert; Abrahamsen, Yngve; Abberger, Klaus; et al. (2020)
    KOF Analysen
    Der vorliegende Beitrag dokumentiert die Ergebnisse der Konjunkturprognose vom Herbst 2020 der KOF Konjunkturforschungsstelle der ETH Zürich vom 22. Oktober 2020. Zuerst werden die besonderen Umstände infolge der COVID-19-Pandemie und unsere Annahmen für diese Prognose diskutiert. Danach erörtern wir die jüngsten Wirtschaftsentwicklungen im Ausland und in der Schweiz sowie die geldpolitischen und monetären Rahmenbedingungen für die Schweizer Wirtschaft. Sodann folgen die wichtigsten Prognoseergebnisse für die verschiedenen Wirtschaftsbereiche der Schweiz. Zuletzt folgt ein ausführlicher Datenanhang.
  • Weighting bias and inflation in the time of Covid-19: Evidence from Swiss transaction data
    Item type: Other Publication
    Seiler, Pascal (2020)
    VoxEU
    Sharp changes in consumer expenditure may bias inflation during the Covid-19 pandemic. This column measures the effects of the Covid-induced weighting bias on the Swiss consumer price index by quantifying the changes in consumer spending using public data from debit card transactions, updating CPI basket weights and constructing an alternative ‘Covid price index’. There is evidence that Covid inflation was higher during the lockdown than suggested by CPI inflation. Persistent ‘low-touch’ consumer behaviour may lead to inflation being underestimated through to the end of 2020.
  • Konjunkturanalyse: Prognose 2021 / 2022. Zweite Welle lastet auf dem Arbeitsmarkt
    Item type: Journal Article
    Abberger, Klaus; Abrahamsen, Yngve; Anderes, Marc; et al. (2020)
    KOF Analysen
    Der vorliegende Beitrag dokumentiert die Ergebnisse der Konjunkturprognose vom Winter 2020 der KOF Konjunkturforschungsstelle der ETH Zürich und ist am 15. Dezember 2020 erschienen. Im ersten Kapitel werden die jüngsten Wirtschaftsentwicklungen in der Schweiz diskutiert. Im zweiten Kapitel folgen die wichtigsten Prognoseergebnisse für die verschiedenen Wirtschaftsbereiche , aufgeteilt nach den wichtigsten verwendungsseitigen Komponenten des Bruttoinlandprodukts. Das dritte Kapitel erörtert die wichtigsten Prognoseergebnisse für die Weltwirtschaft. Zuletzt folgt ein ausführlicher Datenanhang.
  • Price setting before and during the pandemic: evidence from Swiss consumer prices
    Item type: Working Paper
    Rudolf, Barbara; Seiler, Pascal (2022)
    ECB Working Paper Series
    We provide new evidence on price rigidity at the product level based on microdata underlying the Swiss consumer price index from 2008 to 2020. We find that the frequency of price changes has increased over the last decade, particularly among products where collection switched to online prices, reflecting the rise of e-commerce. Furthermore, price changes tend to be synchronized within rather than across stores. Time variations in inflation can be attributed mainly to variations in the frequency of both price increases and price decreases. In the first year of the pandemic, the frequency of price adjustments changed little on average, while temporary sales responded countercyclically to the respective demand conditions across sectors.
Publications1 - 10 of 75