期刊名称：Euro Area Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Statistics
印刷版ISSN：1830-3420
电子版ISSN：1830-3439
出版年度：2014
出版社：European Central Bank
摘要：Using a comprehensive data set on retail prices across the euro area,we analyze within- and cross-country price dispersion in European coun-tries. First, we study price dispersion over time, by investigating thetime-series evolution of the coecient of variation, calculated from pricelevels. Second, since we nd that cross-sectional price dispersion by fardominates price dispersion over time, we study price dispersion acrossspace and investigate the role of geographical barriers (distance and na-tional borders). We nd that (i) prices move together more closely inlocations that are closer to each other; (ii) cross-country price dispersionis by an order of magnitude larger than within-country price dispersion,even after controlling for product heterogeneity; (iii) a large part of cross-country price di erences can be explained by di erent tax rates, incomelevels and consumption intensities. In addition, we nd some indicationthat price dispersion in the euro area has declined since the inception ofthe Monetary Union.
关键词：price dispersion; international relative prices; border e ect
