Sectoral Output Effects of Monetary Policy: Do Sticky Prices Matter?

Abstract

This paper studies the role of sticky prices for the monetary transmission mechanism, using disaggregated industry-level data from 205 US industries. There is substantial heterogeneity in the output responses of industries to monetary policy surprises. I show that an industry's response to monetary policy surprises is systematically related to an industry's degree of price stickiness as measured by the average frequency of price adjustment. The size of the differential reaction is economically large and statistically significant. The results suggest that sticky prices play an important role in the transmission of monetary policy, consistent with New Keynesian macroeconomic models. This result is robust to the inclusion of further industry-level control variables.