William Gittes Chair in Macroeconomics

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel Levy, Ph.D

 Professor of Economics and William Gittes Chair

 

The goal of the William Gittes Chair in Macroeconomics is to promote and deepen the scholarly work in macroeconomics in the context of modern New Keynesian models, with a primary focus on the behavior of prices.

Among the questions we ask are:

• How rigid (or sticky) are retail prices?
• Why are retail prices rigid/sticky?
• What are the determinants of retail price rigidity and flexibility?
• Why do we observe so many 9-ending (and currently in Israel, 90-ending) retail prices?
• How do consumers interpret and react to 9-ending (and currently in Israel, to 90-ending) prices?
• How does psychological pricing affect consumers’ ability to recall prices?
• “Rockets and Feathers:” What determines asymmetry in price adjustment?
• Why do we see so frequent small price changes?
• How attentive are the shoppers to retail prices?
• What are the determinants of consumer attention to prices?
• “Shrinkflation:” Why do package sizes shrink and what it has to do with consumer attention?

 

MA Students and Their Theses Projects 

• Danny Geller - "The Beginning of 9-Ending Prices"
• Reut Keren - "The 9 Is Dead, Long Live the 90!"
• Sigal Salonikov - "Potterian Economics and Economic Literacy"

 

Ph.D. Students and Their Theses Projects

• Doron Sayag - "Empirical Examination of Two Leading Theories of Price Rigidity"
• Arthur Sandler - "Temporary Sales and Sticky Prices: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic"

 

Papers published

• Snir, Avichai, Daniel Levy, and Haipeng (Allan) Chen (2017), “End of 9-Endings, Price Recall, and Price Perceptions,” Economics Letters 155 (June), 157–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2017.04.001.
• Levy, Daniel, Avichai Snir, Alex Gotler, and Haipeng (Allan) Chen (2020), “Not All Price Endings Are Created Equal: Price Points and Asymmetric Price Rigidity,” Journal of Monetary Economics 110 (April), 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2019.01.005.
• Levy, Daniel, and Andrew T. Young (2021), “Promise, Trust, and Betrayal: The Cost of Breaching an Implicit Contract,” Southern Economic Journal 87, 1031–1051. https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12479.  
• Snir, Avichai, and Daniel Levy (2021), “If You Think 9-Ending Prices Are Low, Think Again,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 6(1), 33–47 (Special Issue on Behavioral Pricing). https://doi.org/10.1086/710241.
• Snir, Avichai, Haipeng (Allan) Chen, and Daniel Levy (2021), “Stuck at Zero: Price Rigidity in a Runaway Inflation,” Economics Letters 204(C), July, 109885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109885.
• Levy, Daniel, Tamir Mayer, and Alon Raviv (2022), “Economists in the 2008 Crisis: Slow to See, Fast to Act,” Journal of Financial Stability 60 (March), 100986. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfs.2022.100986.
• Dezhbakhsh, Hashem, and Daniel Levy (2022), “Interpolation and Shock Persistence of Prewar U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series: A Reconsideration,” Economics Letters 213 (April), 110386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110386.
• Levy, Daniel, and Avichai Snir (2022), “Potterian Economics,” Oxford Open Economics 1(1), July, 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1093/ooec/odac004.
• Snir, Avichai, Haipeng (Allan) Chen, and Daniel Levy (2022), “Zero-Ending Prices, Cognitive Convenience, and Price Rigidity,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 203C (November), 519–542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.09.018.
• Bergen, Mark, Thomas Bergen, Daniel Levy, and Rose Semenov (2022), “3 Lessons from Hyperinflationary Periods,” Harvard Business Review, November 30, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/11/3-lessons-from-hyperinflationary-periods.
• Ray, Sourav, Avichai Snir, and Daniel Levy (2023), “Retail Pricing Format and Rigidity of Regular Prices,” Economica 90(360), 1173–1203. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12492.

 

Scientific Conference and Seminar Presentations

• ISET-HEC Lausanne Workshop on Economic Theory, Tbilisi, February 13, 2017
• Pricing Research Camp, University of Illinois, Chicago, May 9–10, 2017
• Bar-Ilan University, May 25, 2017
• Bar-Ilan University, June 19, 2017
• ISET, September 28, 2017
• Italian Society of Law and Economics 13^th Annual Conference, Lumsa University, Rome, Italy, Dec. 15–16, 2017
• Housing and Real Estate Economics Workshop, Tel Aviv University, December 9, 2018
• TAUB Center, February 18, 2018
• Israeli Economic Association Annual Conference, Tel-Aviv, June 14, 2018
• Bar-Ilan University, November 26, 2018
• Bar-Ilan University, November 28, 2018
• Economic History Association of Israel, 7^th Annual Conference, Tel Aviv University, December 16, 2018
• ISET, February 4, 2019
• Workshop on Sentiments and Crises in Financial Texts, Bar-Ilan University, Data Science Institute, May 6, 2019
• Bar-Ilan University, May 14, 2019
• Ariel University, May 16, 2019
• The 9^th European Meeting of the Urban Economics Association, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, May 31, 2019
• The 3^rd Israeli Behavioral Finance Conference, Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, June 5, 2019
• ISET Research Day, ISET, Tbilisi, Georgia, July 3, 2019
• Bank of Israel, September 23, 2019.
• The 1^st Spanish Public Choice Workshop, Universidad de Navarra, Spain, October 24–25, 2019.
• Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics, December 9, 2019
• Bar-Ilan University, January 15, 2020
• Ariel University, January 16, 2020
• Bar-Ilan University, January 22, 2020
• American Marketing Association Winter Conference, San Diego, CA, USA, February 14–16, 2020
• Bar-Ilan University, May 20, 2020
• Jerusalem Institute of Technology, April 23, 2020
• Informs Marketing Science Conference, Duke University, June 10-13, 2020
• International Risk Management Conference, NYU and University of Firenze, October 9-10, 2020
• ISET, October 15, 2020
• Bar-Ilan University, October 19, 2020
• Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Bar Ilan University - Ben Gurion University Seminar Series, October 31, 2020
• Econometric Society, Winter Conference, Nottingham, December 14-16, 2020
• JACR Behavioral Pricing Special Issue Conference, University of Kentucky, February 15, 17, 2021
• CTREE – 10^th Annual Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education, June 2-4, 2021
• Third Warsaw Money-Macro-Finance Conference, ICEA, University of Warsaw, June 3-4, 2021
• ISGS – International Society of Georgian Scientists, June 13, 2021
• Inflation: Drivers and Dynamics 2021 – ECB/Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Conference, October 7, 2021
• Bar-Ilan University, October 18, 2021
• Bank of Israel, October 20, 2021
• National University of Singapore, Economics Society Workshop, October 26, 2021
• Data Science Institute Conference, Bar-Ilan University, October 28, 2021
• Graduate School of Business Administration, Bar-Ilan University, December 7, 2021
• Conference on “Inflation – After the Pandemic,” International Centre for Economic Analysis, January 27, 2022
• Royal Economic Society Annual Conference, April 11-13, 2022 (2 papers)
• Armenian Economic Association Annual Conference, June 30, 2022
• American Marketing Association Winter Conference, February 10, 2023.
• Israeli Economic Association Annual Conference, Tel-Aviv, June 22, 2023
• International Conference on Empirical Economics, Pennsylvania State University, August 5, 2023
• 5^th Warsaw Money-Macro-Finance Conference, University of Warsaw, September 21-22, 2023
• 6^th Annual Law and Macroeconomics Conference, Tulane Law School, Tulane University, November 2, 2023
• Bar-Ilan University, February 5, 2024
• Innsbruck Winter Summit on Un(Ethical) Behavior in Markets, University of Innsbruck, Austria, March 13–15, 2024

 

Paper Discussions at Conferences

• CTREE – 10^th Annual Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education, June 2-4, 2021

 

Invited Public Lectures and Presentations

• Bar-Ilan University, Brookdale Program, June 4, 2017
• ISET Public Lecture, Tbilisi, Georgia, November 9, 2017
• Bar-Ilan in the Lobby, Hotel Vital, Tel Aviv, January 30, 2024