Δεν διατίθεται στα ελληνικά.
Nicole Jonker
- 19 May 2022
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 294Details
- Abstract
- The paper provides an overview of studies on the social and private costs of retail payments conducted since 2013 in nine EU countries and collates the results obtained. Social costs of retail payments are the overall costs resulting from providing payment services to society and deriving from the resource costs incurred by all parties along the payment chain. Private costs, in contrast, are the costs incurred by the individual stakeholder only, such as banks and other payment intermediaries. Understanding the social and private costs of retail payments is crucial for assessing the impact of the rapidly changing retail payment landscape, such as the shift to electronic payments, and for designing strategies for moving towards cost efficient retail payments. Despite varying scopes and methodological differences, the analysis reached the following findings: a comparison of results between 2009 and 2016 in Denmark and Italy, between 2015 and 2018 in Poland and between 2009 and 2017 in Portugal, points to decreasing overall social costs for retail payments relative to gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, the data suggest that changing payment habits – the shift to electronic payments and in particular debit cards – have an impact on unit costs, which represent the costs per transaction. The unit costs of debit card payments have decreased over time and the gap between the unit costs of cash and those for debit cards has narrowed. This suggests that the increasing number of debit card payments, to which high fixed costs are attached, has led to lower unit costs relative to those of cash. The only study on the costs of retail payments in Europe, published as an ECB occasional paper, dates from 2012 and is based on data from 2009. Although more recent surveys at national level are available, no single source exists that sheds light on recent information on the costs of retail payments in Europe. Since the national surveys follow different approaches, in terms of both scope and methodology used, for obtaining the costs of retail payments, the resu
- JEL Code
- D23 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Organizational Behavior, Transaction Costs, Property Rights
D24 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Production, Cost, Capital, Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity, Capacity
O52 : Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth→Economywide Country Studies→Europe
E42 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Money and Interest Rates→Monetary Systems, Standards, Regimes, Government and the Monetary System, Payment Systems
- 14 September 2005
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 524Details
- Abstract
- This paper documents patterns of price setting at the retail level in the euro area, summarized in six stylized facts. First, the average euro area monthly frequency of price adjustment is 15 p.c., compared to about 25 p.c. in the US. Second, the frequency of price changes is characterized by substantial cross product heterogeneity - prices of oil and unprocessed food products change very often, while price adjustments are less frequent for processed food, non energy industrial goods and services. Third, cross country heterogeneity exists but is less pronounced. Fourth, price decreases are not uncommon. Fifth, price increases and decreases are sizeable compared to aggregate and sectoral inflation rates. Sixth, price changes are not highly synchronized across retailers. Moreover, the frequency of price changes in the euro area is related to several factors, such as seasonality, outlet type, indirect taxation, pricing practices as well as aggregate or product specific inflation.
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
D40 : Microeconomics→Market Structure and Pricing→General
C25 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Single Equation Models, Single Variables→Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models, Discrete Regressors, Proportions - Network
- Eurosystem inflation persistence network
Annexes- 23 May 2007
- ANNEX
- 30 November 2004
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 413Details
- Abstract
- In this paper we examine pricing behaviour of retail firms in the Netherlands during 1998-2003 using a large database with monthly price quotes of 49 articles, representing different product types. We have conducted this study in order to gain in sight in the degree of nominal rigidity of consumer prices in the Netherlands. We find that prices of energy and unprocessed food are most flexible, whereas prices of services are stickiest. A multivariate analysis shows that firm size matters with prices being stickiest in small firms and most flexible in large firms and in retail firms consisting of the owners only. Furthermore, we investigate pass-through effects of VAT changes in prices. We find that VAT increases are almost completely passed on to consumers. Finally, there is some evidence indicating that pricing behaviour of retail firms was different during the introduction of the euro than in the period directly preceding it.
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
D49 : Microeconomics→Market Structure and Pricing→Other
C41 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics→Duration Analysis, Optimal Timing Strategies - Network
- Eurosystem inflation persistence network
- 1 September 2002
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 172Details
- Abstract
- The Boskin report (1996) concluded that the US consumer price index (CPI) overestimated the inflation by 1.1 percentage points. This was due to several measurement errors in the CPI. One of them is called quality change bias. We compare two methods in this paper which can be used to correct for quality change bias, namely the hedonic method and a method based on the use of discrete choice models. We compare the underlying micro-economic models of the two methods as well as their empirical implementation. Although the discrete choice model has not been used often to calculate quality-adjusted price indices, past research shows that it might be beneficial to do so.
- JEL Code
- C43 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics→Index Numbers and Aggregation
D11 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Economics: Theory
D21 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Theory
C25 : Mathematical and Quantitative Methods→Single Equation Models, Single Variables→Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models, Discrete Regressors, Proportions