More Facts About Prices: France before and during the Great Recession.

Summary Using micro price data, we document new facts on price rigidity in France: (i) each month 20.1% of prices are changed, which compares with 24.1% in the United States. Excluding sales, however, the fraction of prices modified each month is about the same in France and in the United States (around 17%). (ii) the distribution of price changes is quite dispersed. (iii) the frequencies of price increases and decreases contribute a lot to inflation variations, and price increases are more frequent in January even when sales are excluded. (iv) sales contribute significantly to the volatility of inflation but are much less sensitive to macroeconomic fluctuations than regular price changes. (v) during the Great Recession patterns of price adjustment were only slightly modified.