Hintajäykkyys

Hintajäykkyys, in economics, refers to the tendency of prices to adjust slowly and incompletely in response to changes in demand, supply, or overall economic conditions. It describes a situation where the price level is relatively sticky in the short run, even when real factors would justify a change.

Causes of hintajäykkyys include menu costs (the costs of changing prices, such as reprinting labels or updating systems), contractual arrangements (wage, lease, or supplier contracts that fix prices for a period), informational frictions (firms and consumers updating information slowly), and strategic considerations (firms coordinating prices with competitors or maintaining price promises to preserve customer relationships). Product heterogeneity and customer losses from frequent price changes can also contribute.

Models and measurement often focus on price-setting frictions. The Calvo pricing model, for example, assumes that firms can adjust prices only with a certain probability in each period. Empirically, researchers measure price-change frequencies in consumer and producer price indices, finding that many firm prices change only a few times per year.

Implications of price rigidity include a smaller automatic response of output and employment to monetary or real shocks in the short run, giving monetary policy more influence on real variables. Over time, prices tend to become more flexible, reducing rigidity and aligning the price level with fundamental factors. Price rigidity is closely related to wage rigidity, and together they shape the short-run dynamics of inflation and macroeconomic activity.