Patterns of Retail Price Variation
研究美国多种商品和地区的零售价格变动，发现典型杂货产品有常规价格且至少50%时间维持该价格，大多数偏离为降价；临时折扣虽不频繁，但占多数品类年价格变动的20%至50%。现有模型无法完全解释观察到的定价特征。
We examine retail price variation across a range of goods and regions of the United States. We find that the typical grocery product has a regular price and stays at that price at least 50% of the time, and that most deviations from that regular price are downward. Temporary discounts or sales, while infrequent, account for 20% to 50% of the annual variation in retail prices for most product categories. Although existing models of retail sales yield predictions consistent with some aspects of the retail pricing distributions, all of these models fail to explain other important aspects of retail pricing identified here.