some evidence on the importance of sticky prices mark bils department economics university rochester and nber peter j klenow federal reserve bank minneapolis june 2002 abstract we examine frequency price changes for 350 categories goods services covering about 70 consumer spending based unpublished data from bls 1995 to 1997 compared with previous studies find much more frequent half lasting less than 4 3 months differs dramatically across exploit this variation ask how inflation flexible in individual those displaying infrequent predictions popular models actual rates are far volatile transient particularly grateful sreya kolay especially oleksiy kryvtsov excellent research assistance thank walter lane john greenlees providing us helpful suggestions susanto basu michael bryan jeff campbell alan kackmeister ananth sheshadri guhan venkatu 1 introduction stickiness remains