We introduce new firm-level indices covering input costs, demand and final prices based
on listed Australian firms' earnings calls going back to 2007. These indices are
constructed using a powerful transformer-based large language model. We show the new
indices track current economic conditions, consistent with a simple conceptual framework
we use to explain why there is real-time information in firms' earnings calls. Focusing
on firms' price-setting behaviour, the reduced-form associations we estimate appear to
show that discussions around final prices have become more sensitive to import costs but
less sensitive to labour costs in the period since 2021. This is after controlling for
changes in the operating environment that are common to all firms, including global
supply shocks. Firms' price-setting sentiment also appears more sensitive to rising
input costs compared to falling costs, suggesting that prices could remain front-of-mind
for company executives even as supply pressures ease.