Although administered prices are not necessarily inflexible prices, there is a relationship between a series of price characteristics--price flexibility and inflexibility, price leadership, and price discrimination. Prices are considered flexible or inflexible, depending on how they respond to the forces that normally cause price changes.
 "Rigid" and "sticky" are other terms applied to inflexible prices. It is not easy to determine when the degree of price fluctuation or amplitude is so small that inflexibility results. A minimum of price change over a period of time, as revealed by a price index, is not conclusive proof of inflexibility. Moreover, if a given industry or firm has a preponderance of fixed costs, there will be more rigidity in its price structure than if variable costs are dominant. Price inflexibility is not characteristic of industrial markets only. Many retail items move little in price, especially those whose price is linked to a unit of money or custom. Many of these prices may be administered as well. We have noted that prices for the agents of production --wages, interest, and rents--generally are administered and demonstrate a minimum of change for long periods of time.
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