Price Setting Under Uncertainty About Inflation ∗ Andr´esDrenik Diego J. Perez Columbia University New York University August 12, 2019 Abstract We analyze the manipulation of inflation statistics that occurred in Argentina start- ing in 2007 to test the relevance of informational frictions in price setting. We estimate that the manipulation of statistics had associated a higher degree of price dispersion. This effect is analyzed in the context of a quantitative general equilibrium model in which firms use information about the inflation rate to set prices. Not reporting accu- rate measures of the CPI entails significant welfare losses, especially in economies with volatile monetary policy. Keywords: Price setting, informational frictions, social value of public information. JEL codes: D8, E1, E3. ∗Drenik:
[email protected]. Perez:
[email protected]. We thank Hassan Afrouzi, Fernando Alvarez, Manuel Amador, Carola Binder, Nick Bloom, Ariel Burstein, Alberto Cavallo, Zhen Huo, Boyan Jovanovic, Pablo Kurlat, Brent Neiman, Pablo Ottonello, Monika Piazzesi, Ricardo Reis, Martin Schneider, Venky Venkateswaran, Pierre-Olivier Weill and conference participants at Stanford, SED Warsaw, NBER Summer Institute, NYU, Yale, the Federal Reserve Board, Minneapolis Fed, Boston University, Columbia, International Macro-Finance Conference at Chicago Booth, NBER Monetary Economics, UCLA, Rochester, University of Copenhagen, and the 2018 ASSA Meetings for valuable comments. We also thank MercadoLibre and their employees for their cooperation and help. 1 Introduction