[PDF] Price Response Asymmetry And Spatial Differetntiation In Local Retail Gasoline Markets eBook

Author : Jeremy A. Verlinda
Publisher : BiblioGov
Page : 62 pages
File Size : 34,17 MB
Release : 2013-06
Category :
ISBN : 9781289031015

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This study explores the possibility that local market power influences the observed asymmetric relationship between changes in wholesale gasoline costs and changes in retail gasoline prices. I exploit an original data set of weekly gas station prices in Southern California from September 2002 to May 2003, and take advantage of detailed station and local market level characteristics to determine the extent to which spatial differentiation influences price response asymmetry. I find that brand identity, proximity to rival stations, bundling and advertising, operation type, and local market features and demographics each influence a station's predicted price-response asymmetry.

Author : Jeremy A. Verlinda
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 10,51 MB
Release : 2007
Category :
ISBN :

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This study explores the possibility that local market power influences the observed asymmetric relationship between changes in wholesale gasoline costs and changes in retail gasoline prices. I exploit an original data set of weekly gas station prices in Southern California from September 2002 to May 2003, and take advantage of detailed station and local market level characteristics to determine the extent to which geographic and product differentiation influences price response asymmetry. I find that brand identity, proximity to rival stations, and local market features and demographics each influence a station's predicted price-response asymmetry. Web Appendix available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1000964.

Author :
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 17,82 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Gasoline
ISBN : 1428918760

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This report examines a recurring question about gasoline markets: why, especially in times of high price volatility, do retail gasoline prices seem to rise quickly but fall back more slowly? Do gasoline prices actually rise faster than they fall, or does this just appear to be the case because people tend to pay more attention to prices when they`re rising? This question is more complex than it might appear to be initially, and it has been addressed by numerous analysts in government, academia and industry. The question is very important, because perceived problems with retail gasoline pricing have been used in arguments for government regulation of prices. The phenomenon of prices at different market levels tending to move differently relative to each other depending on direction is known as price asymmetry. This report summarizes the previous work on gasoline price asymmetry and provides a method for testing for asymmetry in a wide variety of situations. The major finding of this paper is that there is some amount of asymmetry and pattern asymmetry, especially at the retail level, in the Midwestern states that are the focus of the analysis. Nevertheless, both the amount asymmetry and pattern asymmetry are relatively small. In addition, much of the pattern asymmetry detected in this and previous studies could be a statistical artifact caused by the time lags between price changes at different points in the gasoline distribution system. In other words, retail gasoline prices do sometimes rise faster than they fall, but this is largely a lagged market response to an upward shock in the underlying wholesale gasoline or crude oil prices, followed by a return toward the previous baseline. After consistent time lags are factored out, most apparent asymmetry disappears.

Author : Jean-Francois Houde
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 27,14 MB
Release : 2009
Category :
ISBN :

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This paper studies an empirical model of spatial competition and evaluates the impact of vertical relations on prices and consumer welfare. The main feature of my approach is to specify commuting paths as the "locations" of consumers in a Hotelling-style model. As a result spatial differentation depends in an intuitive way on the structure of the road network and the direction of traffic flows. The model is estimated using panel data on the Québec City gasoline market, and used to quantify markups and simulate two important counter-factual policies: elimination of vertical integration, and wholesale price discrimination ban.

Author : James Alm
Publisher :
Page : 33 pages
File Size : 30,45 MB
Release : 2006
Category :
ISBN :

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In this paper we use monthly gasoline price data for all fifty U.S. states over the period 1984 to 1999 to examine the incidence of state gasoline excise taxes. Standard economic theory predicts full shifting of the excise tax to consumers when the supply of gasoline is perfectly elastic, and our empirical results are largely consistent with this prediction. In general, we find full shifting of gasoline taxes to the final consumer, with changes in gasoline taxes fully reflected in the tax-inclusive gasoline price almost instantly, a result consistent with a retail gasoline market in which firms are perfectly competitive and produce at constant cost. In addition, although we find that gasoline retail prices demonstrate asymmetric responses to changes in gasoline wholesale prices, we find only limited evidence of such behavior for retail prices with respect to gasoline excise taxes. Importantly, we also present a novel application of a spatial price discrimination model to examine tax incidence in markets that are not perfectly competitive. In this alternative framework, the incidence of excise taxes depends upon the competitiveness of retail gasoline markets, which depends in turn on spatial aspects of the market. Consistent with this alternative theoretical framework, our empirical estimates demonstrate that gasoline markets in urban states exhibit full shifting, but those in rural states demonstrate somewhat less than full shifting.

Author :
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 22,63 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Exchange rate pass-through
ISBN :

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The price pass-through relationship of retail gasoline markets in the United States has been examined on several levels. This dissertation takes two unique approaches to examine the pass-through behavior (1) a seemingly unrelated regressions model to survey regional differences in gasoline markets and (2) a pooled panel error-correction approach to analyze the effects of spatial competition on local Mississippi gasoline markets. The first model showed the presence of rockets and feathers on a regional level in the US. Moreover, every PADD had a long run asymmetric price pass-through relationship. I included variables to capture the effect of Hurricane Katrina. The inclusion of the Katrina variable indicated only the immediate period after the storm changed the pass-through behavior. Additionally, the market returned to the pre-Katrina pass-through relationship twelve weeks after the storm. The pooled panel model showed the presence of rockets and feathers in the state of Mississippi. It also indicated that the presence of spatial competition does have an effect on the price pass-through behavior. Moreover, the exact distance to the closest competitor did have a significant effect on the price pass-through relationship.

Author : Federal Trade Commission
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 44 pages
File Size : 47,9 MB
Release : 2014-09-25
Category :
ISBN : 9781502478474

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This book presents new evidence of asymmetric pass-through, the notion that upward cost shocks are passed through faster than downward cost shocks, in U.S. gasoline prices. Much of the extant literature comes to seemingly contradictory conclusions about the existence of an asymmetry, though the differences may be due to different aggregation (both over time and geographic markets) and the use of different price series including crude oil, wholesale, and retail gasoline prices. I utilize a large and detailed dataset to determine where evidence of a pass-through asymmetry exists, and how it depends on the aggregation and price series chosen by the researcher. Using the standard error correction model, I find evidence of pass-through asymmetry in the response of daily and weekly retail prices to wholesale rack price changes, though the magnitude varies by geographic market. On average, retail prices rise more than four times as fast as they fall. Branded gasoline features significantly more asymmetry with respect to rack prices compared with unbranded gasoline. Over time, nation-wide asymmetry varies significantly from year to year peaking in 2005. Midwest cities, like Louisville and Minneapolis, feature more asymmetry compared with other parts of the country. F-tests broadly confirm the results and illustrate that data selection and aggregation, as well as model specification, can have important implications on the findings of asymmetric pass-through.