Summary: Sticky, in the social sciences and particularly economics, describes a situation in which a variable is resistant to change. For example, nominal wages are often said to be sticky in the short run. Market forces may reduce the real value of labour in an industry, but wages will tend to remain at previous levels in the short run. This can be due to institutional factors such as price regulations, legal contractual commitments (e.g. office leases and employment contracts), labour unions, human stubbornness, or self-interest. Stickiness normally applies in one direction. For example, a variable that is “sticky downward” will be reluctant to drop even if conditions dictate that it should. However, in the long run wages will drop to equilibrium level.

Economists tend to cite four possible causes of price stickiness: menu costs, money illusion, imperfect information with regards to price changes, and fairness concerns. Robert Hall cites incentive and cost barriers on the part of firms to help explain stickiness in wages.

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Why Are Prices Sticky? The Dynamics of Wholesale Gasoline Prices

The menu-cost interpretation of sticky prices implies that the probability of a price change should depend on the past history of prices and fundamentals only through the gap between the current price and the frictionless price. We find that this prediction is broadly consistent with the behavior of 9 Philadelphia gasoline wholesalers. We nevertheless reject the menu-cost model as a literal description of these firms’ behavior, arguing instead that price stickiness arises from strategic considerations of how customers and competitors will react to price changes.

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