Harvard financial economist Alberto Cavallo empirically shows the recent *Amazon effect* of faster retail price adjustments.

Amy Hamilton

2018-08-23 11:34:00 Thu ET

Harvard financial economist Alberto Cavallo empirically shows the recent *Amazon effect* that online retailers such as Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay etc use fast multi-channel pricing algorithms to determine the retail prices of consumer goods and services. As online purchases now account for a much greater share of total retail sales, the Cavallo study shows that the average duration of American retail prices at Amazon and Walmart significantly declines from 6.5 months to 3.7 months. For central bankers and monetary policymakers who often monitor transitional inflation dynamism from time to time, retail prices are subject to more frequent adjustments with less insulation from common nationwide shocks. Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay etc can now use smart retail-pricing algorithms to take into account energy prices, exchange-rate fluctuations, and other forces that might affect both production and delivery costs.

This important empirical evidence shakes confidence in the conventional notion of sticky prices that sellers often cannot adjust retail prices or menu costs right away in response to systemic changes in aggregate macroeconomic demand and supply. For better monetary policy conduct, the Cavallo study demonstrates that our macro focus needs to move beyond nominal price rigidities in dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) sticky-price macro models. Labor market frictions, information asymmetries, and even behavioral inattention costs tend to disappear, or at least decrease in relative importance, as more online retailers apply smart algorithms to price consumer goods and services.

This core implication poses a conceptual challenge to the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) that depicts an inverse link between inflation and unemployment at least in the short run. The U.S. economy can revert to the long-run steady state at a faster pace as the Amazon effect induces more frequent retail price adjustments toward dynamic equilibrium values.

U.S. core inflation excludes both food and energy prices and hovers around 2% in mid-2018. As the economy operates near full employment with fresh inflationary momentum, the tech-savvy adoption of smart algorithms can drive fast and volatile retail price adjustments. The Federal Reserve thus has to consider further interest rate hikes to curtail inflation. In light of Trump tax cuts, infrastructure expenditures, and tariffs on imports from China, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Mexico etc, this monetary policy coordination accords with the Federal Reserve's congressional dual mandate of both maximum employment and price stability.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Zillow share price plunges 20% year-to-date as Redfin and Trulia also experience an economic slowdown in the real estate market.

Daisy Harvey

2018-11-17 09:33:00 Saturday ET

Zillow share price plunges 20% year-to-date as Redfin and Trulia also experience an economic slowdown in the real estate market.

Zillow share price plunges 20% year-to-date as its competitors Redfin and Trulia also experience an economic slowdown in the real estate market. The real es

+See More

Larry Summers critiques that the Trump tax holiday for U.S. multinational corporations may cause inadvertent consequences.

Rose Prince

2017-01-17 12:42:00 Tuesday ET

Larry Summers critiques that the Trump tax holiday for U.S. multinational corporations may cause inadvertent consequences.

Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers critiques that the Trump administration's generous tax holiday for American multinational

+See More

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Amy Hamilton

2018-03-17 09:35:00 Saturday ET

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users. In a Facebook pos

+See More

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of Amazon (U.S. stock symbol: $AMZN).

Dan Rochefort

2025-09-14 14:23:00 Sunday ET

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of Amazon (U.S. stock symbol: $AMZN).

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fund

+See More

The Trump administration blames China for egregious currency misalignment.

Olivia London

2018-10-17 12:33:00 Wednesday ET

The Trump administration blames China for egregious currency misalignment.

The Trump administration blames China for egregious currency misalignment, but this criticism cannot confirm *currency manipulation* on the part of the Chin

+See More

President Donald Trump releases his plan to slash income taxes for U.S. citizens and corporations.

Jacob Miramar

2017-09-03 10:44:00 Sunday ET

President Donald Trump releases his plan to slash income taxes for U.S. citizens and corporations.

President Donald Trump has released his plan to slash income taxes for U.S. citizens and corporations. The corporate income tax rate will decline from 35% t

+See More