Seminars 2008 — Abstracts

Friday, March 14

Speaker: Patrick Sevestre, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne

Title: Costs, demand and producer price changes

Abstract: We estimate an ordered probit model in order to explain the occurrence and magnitude of producer price changes in the French manufacturing sector. The data we use is a firm panel dataset built essentially from the set of the Banque de France Monthly Business Surveys over the years 1998-2005. Our results show that firms change their prices when they face significant modifications in their environment, regarding either their input costs or the demand being addressed to them. The reaction of firms appears to be faster and stronger to changes in material prices than they are when demand changes.