IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v94y2021ics0140988320303893.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

International crude oil price, regulation and asymmetric response of China's gasoline price

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Hao
  • Sun, Zesheng

Abstract

Since 2013, China has implemented a new retail price-cap regulation for refined oil together with a quota regulation for crude oil imports due to concerns about the negative impacts of oil price fluctuations. This study aims to explore for the first time the dynamics of China's gasoline price response to international oil market price fluctuations and the domestic price regulation. The analysis was conducted using the panel-asymmetric error correction model based on daily panel data of heterogeneous refiners. It is found that: (1) China's gasoline price exhibits an asymmetric response to the international crude oil price, with a strong, rapid response to crude oil price increases but a delayed and long-lasting response to decreases; (2) the price response to price regulation is symmetric at the industry level but asymmetric among different refiners, with state-owned refiners responding more to a regulated price increase, whereas private refiners respond more to a regulated price decrease; and (3) in the context of crude oil import regulation, China's gasoline price responds symmetrically to fuel oil price changes but asymmetrically to price regulation. This results in distortions in both the oil market and price response dynamics. It is therefore recommended that reforms should be enacted to relax the import quota policy and deregulate prices so as to correct these market distortions and accelerate the development of China's crude oil and refined products markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Hao & Sun, Zesheng, 2021. "International crude oil price, regulation and asymmetric response of China's gasoline price," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:94:y:2021:i:c:s0140988320303893
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2020.105049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988320303893
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.105049?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Severin Borenstein & Andrea Shepard, 2002. "Sticky Prices, Inventories, and Market Power in Wholesale Gasoline Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(1), pages 116-139, Spring.
    2. Matthew S. Lewis, 2011. "Asymmetric Price Adjustment and Consumer Search: An Examination of the Retail Gasoline Market," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 409-449, June.
    3. Balaguer, Jacint & Ripollés, Jordi, 2016. "Asymmetric fuel price responses under heterogeneity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 281-290.
    4. Pal, Debdatta & Mitra, Subrata Kumar, 2015. "Asymmetric impact of crude price on oil product pricing in the United States: An application of multiple threshold nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 436-443.
    5. Ralf Dewenter & Ulrich Heimeshoff & Hendrik Lüth, 2017. "Less Pain at the Pump? The Effects of Regulatory Interventions in Retail Gasoline Markets," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot GmbH, Berlin, vol. 63(3), pages 259-274.
    6. Al-Gudhea, Salim & Kenc, Turalay & Dibooglu, Sel, 2007. "Do retail gasoline prices rise more readily than they fall?: A threshold cointegration approach," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 59(6), pages 560-574.
    7. Fasoula, Evanthia & Schweikert, Karsten, 2018. "Price regulations and price adjustment dynamics: Evidence from the Austrian retail fuel market," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 08-2018, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    8. Radchenko, Stanislav, 2005. "Oil price volatility and the asymmetric response of gasoline prices to oil price increases and decreases," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 708-730, September.
    9. Balaguer, Jacint & Ripollés, Jordi, 2012. "Testing for price response asymmetries in the Spanish fuel market. New evidence from daily data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 2066-2071.
    10. Hamid Baghestani & Jorg Bley, 2020. "Do directional predictions of US gasoline prices reveal asymmetries?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 44(2), pages 348-360, April.
    11. George Deltas, 2008. "Retail Gasoline Price Dynamics And Local Market Power," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 613-628, September.
    12. Apergis, Nicholas & Vouzavalis, Grigorios, 2018. "Asymmetric pass through of oil prices to gasoline prices: Evidence from a new country sample," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 519-528.
    13. Sun, Yuying & Zhang, Xun & Hong, Yongmiao & Wang, Shouyang, 2019. "Asymmetric pass-through of oil prices to gasoline prices with interval time series modelling," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 165-173.
    14. Michael Polemis, 2012. "Competition and price asymmetries in the Greek oil sector: an empirical analysis on gasoline market," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 789-817, October.
    15. Bettendorf, Leon & van der Geest, Stephanie A. & Varkevisser, Marco, 2003. "Price asymmetry in the Dutch retail gasoline market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 669-689, November.
    16. Ronald Johnson, 2002. "Search Costs, Lags and Prices at the Pump," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 20(1), pages 33-50, February.
    17. Godby, Rob & Lintner, Anastasia M. & Stengos, Thanasis & Wandschneider, Bo, 2000. "Testing for asymmetric pricing in the Canadian retail gasoline market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 349-368, June.
    18. Bacon, Robert W., 1991. "Rockets and feathers: the asymmetric speed of adjustment of UK retail gasoline prices to cost changes," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 211-218, July.
    19. Ralf Dewenter & Ulrich Heimeshoff & Hendrik Lüth, 2017. "Less Pain at the Pump? The Effects of Regulatory Interventions in Retail Gasoline Markets," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot GmbH, Berlin, vol. 63(3), pages 259-274.
    20. Lance J. Bachmeier & James M. Griffin, 2003. "New Evidence on Asymmetric Gasoline Price Responses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 772-776, August.
    21. Severin Borenstein & A. Colin Cameron & Richard Gilbert, 1997. "Do Gasoline Prices Respond Asymmetrically to Crude Oil Price Changes?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 305-339.
    22. Galeotti, Marzio & Lanza, Alessandro & Manera, Matteo, 2003. "Rockets and feathers revisited: an international comparison on European gasoline markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 175-190, March.
    23. Meyler, Aidan, 2009. "The pass through of oil prices into euro area consumer liquid fuel prices in an environment of high and volatile oil prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 867-881, November.
    24. Radchenko, Stanislav & Shapiro, Dmitry, 2011. "Anticipated and unanticipated effects of crude oil prices and gasoline inventory changes on gasoline prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 758-769, September.
    25. Contín-Pilart, Ignacio & Correljé, Aad F. & Blanca Palacios, M., 2009. "Competition, regulation, and pricing behaviour in the Spanish retail gasoline market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 219-228, January.
    26. Nathan S. Balke & Stephen P. A. Brown & Mine K. Yücel, 1998. "Crude oil and gasoline prices: an asymmetric relationship?," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q 1, pages 2-11.
    27. Andrew Eckert, 2002. "Retail price cycles and response asymmetry," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 52-77, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shen, Huayu & Hou, Fei, 2021. "Trade policy uncertainty and corporate innovation evidence from Chinese listed firms in new energy vehicle industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    2. D. O. Olayungbo & T. A. Ojeyinka, 2022. "Crude oil prices pass-through to retail petroleum product prices in Nigeria: evidence from hidden cointegration approach," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 951-972, May.
    3. Cui, Jian & Yang, Hanfang & Wang, Yifan & Yang, Caili, 2023. "Dynamics of the gas retail market under China's price cap regulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    4. Zhang, Qi & Hu, Yi & Jiao, Jianbin & Wang, Shouyang, 2023. "Is refined oil price regulation a “shock absorber” for crude oil price shocks?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    5. Jia, Zhijie & Lin, Boqiang, 2023. "Primary fossil energy cost and price regulation in energy processing sectors---the perspective of price regulation market with Chinese characteristics," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    6. Pradeep, Siddhartha, 2022. "Impact of diesel price reforms on asymmetricity of oil price pass-through to inflation: Indian perspective," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    7. Jakub Horák & Michaela Jannová, 2023. "Predicting the Oil Price Movement in Commodity Markets in Global Economic Meltdowns," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-16, March.
    8. Zhang, Xiaoyu & Zhou, Jinlan & Du, Xiaodong, 2022. "Impact of oil price uncertainty shocks on China’s macro-economy," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Perdiguero-García, Jordi, 2013. "Symmetric or asymmetric oil prices? A meta-analysis approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 389-397.
    2. Pal, Debdatta & Mitra, Subrata K., 2016. "Asymmetric oil product pricing in India: Evidence from a multiple threshold nonlinear ARDL model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 314-328.
    3. Kristoufek, Ladislav & Lunackova, Petra, 2015. "Rockets and feathers meet Joseph: Reinvestigating the oil–gasoline asymmetry on the international markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-8.
    4. Bragoudakis, Zacharias & Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2019. "Oil and pump prices: Is there any asymmetry in the Greek oil downstream sector?," MPRA Paper 95407, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bragoudakis, Zacharias & Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2020. "Oil and pump prices: Testing their asymmetric relationship in a robust way," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    6. Deltas, George & Polemis, Michael, 2020. "Estimating retail gasoline price dynamics: The effects of sample characteristics and research design," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Jonathan E. Ogbuabor & Anthony Orji & Gladys C. Aneke & Manasseh O. Charles, 2019. "Did the global financial crisis alter the oil–gasoline price relationship?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1171-1200, October.
    8. Ederington, Louis H. & Fernando, Chitru S. & Hoelscher, Seth A. & Lee, Thomas K. & Linn, Scott C., 2019. "A review of the evidence on the relation between crude oil prices and petroleum product prices," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 1-15.
    9. Polemis, Michael L. & Fotis, Panagiotis N., 2014. "The taxation effect on gasoline price asymmetry nexus: Evidence from both sides of the Atlantic," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 225-233.
    10. Taner SEKMEN & Seher Gülşah TOPUZ, 2021. "Asymmetric Oil Price and Exchange Rate Pass-Through in the Turkish Oil-Gasoline Markets," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(2), pages 74-93, June.
    11. Jordi Perdiguero-García, 2010. "“Symmetric or asymmetric gasoline prices? A metaanalysis approach”," IREA Working Papers 201013, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Nov 2010.
    12. Bremmer, Dale S. & Kesselring, Randall G., 2016. "The relationship between U.S. retail gasoline and crude oil prices during the Great Recession: “Rockets and feathers” or “balloons and rocks” behavior?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 200-210.
    13. Pradeep, Siddhartha, 2022. "Impact of diesel price reforms on asymmetricity of oil price pass-through to inflation: Indian perspective," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    14. Grasso, Margherita & Manera, Matteo, 2007. "Asymmetric error correction models for the oil-gasoline price relationship," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 156-177, January.
    15. Giliola Frey & Matteo Manera, 2007. "Econometric Models Of Asymmetric Price Transmission," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 349-415, April.
    16. Katarzyna Leszkiewicz-Kędzior & Aleksander Welfe, 2014. "Asymmetric Price Adjustments in the Fuel Market," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 6(2), pages 105-127, June.
    17. Hamid Baghestani & Jorg Bley, 2020. "Do directional predictions of US gasoline prices reveal asymmetries?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 44(2), pages 348-360, April.
    18. Utku Özmen, Mustafa & Akçelik, Fatih, 2017. "Asymmetric exchange rate and oil price pass-through in motor fuel market: A microeconometric approach," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 64-75.
    19. Oladunjoye, Olusegun, 2008. "Market structure and price adjustment in the U.S. wholesale gasoline markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 937-961, May.
    20. Karagiannis, Stelios & Panagopoulos, Yannis & Vlamis, Prodromos, 2015. "Are unleaded gasoline and diesel price adjustments symmetric? A comparison of the four largest EU retail fuel markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 281-291.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:94:y:2021:i:c:s0140988320303893. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.