“…For example, for Italy, Fabiani and Porqueddu (2013) show that in the period between 2006 and 2012 the average duration of consumer prices in Italy has indeed declined to 5 months, from 8 months between 1996 and 2001, indicating that increased sensitivity of prices to cyclical conditions might be partly accounted for by lower nominal rigidities. On the other hand, Berardi et al (2013) find that during the Great Recession, the patterns of price adjustment in France were only slightly modified: the frequency, average size and dispersion of price decreases increased only marginally. 15 Ongoing research at the 15 Using the CPI research database collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vavra (2013) explores the business cycle properties of the distribution of price changes in the US and finds that while price change dispersion (i.e., the second moment of the price change distribution) is strongly countercyclical, the rise in the frequency of adjustment during recessions is modest.…”