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Defined Terms and Documents       
 Price Stickiness  
							
							in Credit Cards
							or  
							
							Sticky
							or 'Stucky'
							means when the  
							
							Overnight Cash Rate
							goes up or down interest rates on Credit Cards are 
often 'stuck' to the existing interest rate - much more so when the  
							
							Overnight Cash Rate 
falls:
							  
How 
to capture the full extent of price stickiness in credit card interest rates?
- 2012 (Wollongong University)
extracts include: 
	
	
	Abstract: We present a new approach to evaluate the full extent 
of price stickiness in credit card interest rates by modifying the existing asymmetric models 
so that they can be adopted for testing both the amount and adjustment asymmetries as well 
as the lagged dynamic inertia. 
	Consistent with similar studies, banks behave 
asymmetrically in response to changes in the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) target interest rate. 
Rate rises are passed onto the consumer faster than rate cuts and the credit card interest rate 
showed a very significant degree of downward rigidity. Based on the magnitude of the 
pass-through parameters obtained from short-run dynamic models, rate rises had a full 
one-to-one and instantaneous impact on credit card interest rates. However, in absolute terms 
the short-run effects of rate cuts were not only less than half of the rate rises, but also 
were delayed on average by three months.
	"In the contemporary literature the asymmetric behaviour of 
credit card interest rates could also be referred to as “rockets-and-feathers hypothesis”. 
In a similar context, Bacon (1991) argued that gasoline prices “shoot up like rockets” in 
response to a positive rise in oil prices and “float down like feathers” in response to a fall. Hannan and Berger (1991)...." 
LOAN 
RATE STICKINESS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE  -  RBA 1992
notes: 
	
	The rate on credit cards is found to be the most 
	sticky, followed by 
personal loan rates, the housing loan rate and the small business overdraft 
rate.
	In contrast, 
the rates on personal loans and credit cards do not appear to be 
more flexible in the deregulated period. 
RBA calls out banks on 'sticky' credit card interest rates 
- SMH |  |   |