Prices of goods and services do not adjust immediately in response to changing demand and supply conditions. This paper characterizes the average frequency and size of price changes in the euro area and its member countries, investigates the determinants of the probability of price changes, and compares the evidence for the euro area with available U.S. results. The facts documented in this paper are based on evidence from individual price data recorded at the store level in all euro area countries except Ireland and Greece: that is in datasets covering Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, which together account for around 97 percent of euro area GDP. The data used are the monthly price records underlying the computation of national Consumer Price Indices and Harmonized Consumer Price Indices. These data cover a large number of products selected on the basis of extensive Household Budget Surveys.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in WO R K I N G PA P E R S E R I E S N O. 5 2 4 / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5 EUROSYSTEM INFLATION PERSISTENCE NETWORK The Eurosystem Inflation Persistence NetworkThis paper reflects research conducted within the Inflation Persistence Network (IPN), a team of Eurosystem economists undertaking joint research on inflation persistence in the euro area and in its member countries. The research of the IPN combines theoretical and empirical analyses using three data sources: individual consumer and producer prices; surveys on firms' price-setting practices; aggregated sectoral, national and area-wide price indices. Patterns, causes and policy implications of inflation persistence are addressed.Since C O N T E N T S Abstract 4Non-technical summary 5

In this paper an open economy model of the New Keynesian PhillipsCurve incorporating three different factors of production, domestic labor and imported as well as domestically produced intermediate goods, is developed and estimated for 9 euro area countries and the euro area aggregate. This general model nests existing closed economy and open economy models as special cases. We find that structural price rigidity is systematically lower in the open economy specification of the model than in the closed economy specification indicating that when firms face more variable input costs they tend to adjust their prices more frequently. However, when the model is estimated in its general specification including also domestic intermediate inputs, price rigidity increases again compared to the open economy specification without domestic intermediate inputs. * This paper has been written in the context of the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network (IPN).† I would like to thank Jordi Gali, Lars Sondergaard and the participants in the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network and in particular Hans Scharler for valuable comments and discussions. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not commit in any way the Oesterreichische Nationalbank or the ECB. All errors are my own responsibility.

We examine the impact of changes in the financial structure of the Austrian banking sector over the past 15 years, such as disintermediation, internationalization and privatization, on the profitability of banks. Several proxies based on bank balance sheet data at the micro-level as well as macroeconomic variables are used to capture these changes. The case of Austria is particularly interesting because the opening up of the Austrian banking sector due to EU accession and the strong engagement of Austrian banks in Eastern Europe coincided with the global trend toward deregulation of banking activities. Our estimation results, which are based on dynamic panel regression methods, indicate that disintermediation (a lower percentage of loans over total assets) and higher market concentration in the banking sector had a positive effect on bank profitability, while changes in the ownership structure (privatization and increased foreign ownership) as well as more foreign lending by Austrian banks did not have a clear-cut or significant impact on bank profits.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Galí and Monacelli (2005). We obtain a testable specification where fluctuations in the terms of trade enter explicitly, thus allowing a comparison of the relevance of domestic versus external determinants of CPI inflation dynamics. For most countries in our sample the expected relative change in the terms of trade emerges as a more relevant inflation driver than the contemporaneous domestic output gap. Overall, our results indicate some, albeit moderate, support for the tested relationship based on data from ten OECD countries typically classified as open economies. Terms of use: Documents in