IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v26y2008i6p1425-1436.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retail gasoline pricing: What do we know?

Author

Listed:
  • Hosken, Daniel S.
  • McMillan, Robert S.
  • Taylor, Christopher T.

Abstract

We use a data set consisting of a three year panel of prices from a sample of gasoline stations located in suburban Washington DC and a corresponding census of the region's stations to develop three new empirical findings about retail gasoline pricing. First, while average retail margins vary substantially over time (by more than 50% over the three years we analyze), the shape of the margin distribution remains relatively constant. Second, there is substantial heterogeneity in pricing behavior: stations charging very low or very high prices are more likely to maintain their pricing position than stations charging prices near the mean. Third, retail gasoline pricing is dynamic. Despite the heterogeneity in station pricing behavior, stations frequently change their relative pricing position in this distribution, sometimes dramatically. We then relate these three findings to relevant theories of retail pricing. While many models of retail pricing are consistent with some of our findings, we find that all have serious shortcomings.

Suggested Citation

  • Hosken, Daniel S. & McMillan, Robert S. & Taylor, Christopher T., 2008. "Retail gasoline pricing: What do we know?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1425-1436, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:26:y:2008:i:6:p:1425-1436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-7187(08)00028-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-659, September.
    2. Severin Boreinstein & Andrea Shepard, 1996. "Dynamic Pricing in Retail Gasoline Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(3), pages 429-451, Autumn.
    3. Shepard, Andrea, 1991. "Price Discrimination and Retail Configuration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 30-53, February.
    4. John Conlisk & Eitan Gerstner & Joel Sobel, 1984. "Cyclic Pricing by a Durable Goods Monopolist," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(3), pages 489-505.
    5. John Haltiwanger & Joseph E. Harrington Jr., 1991. "The Impact of Cyclical Demand Movements on Collusive Behavior," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(1), pages 89-106, Spring.
    6. Michael D. Noel, 2007. "Edgeworth Price Cycles: Evidence From The Toronto Retail Gasoline Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 69-92, March.
    7. Saul Lach, 2002. "Existence And Persistence Of Price Dispersion: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 433-444, August.
    8. Matthew S. Lewis, 2009. "Temporary Wholesale Gasoline Price Spikes Have Long-Lasting Retail Effects: The Aftermath of Hurricane Rita," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 581-605, August.
    9. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 1988. "A Theory of Dynamic Oligopoly, II: Price Competition, Kinked Demand Curves, and Edgeworth Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(3), pages 571-599, May.
    10. Raphael Thomadsen, 2005. "The Effect of Ownership Structure on Prices in Geographically Differentiated Industries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 908-929, Winter.
    11. Baye, Michael R. & Kovenock, Dan & de Vries, Casper G., 1992. "It takes two to tango: Equilibria in a model of sales," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 493-510, October.
    12. Rotemberg, Julio J & Saloner, Garth, 1986. "A Supergame-Theoretic Model of Price Wars during Booms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 390-407, June.
    13. Michael D. Noel, 2007. "Edgeworth Price Cycles, Cost-Based Pricing, and Sticky Pricing in Retail Gasoline Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 324-334, May.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Justine S. Hastings, 2004. "Vertical Relationships and Competition in Retail Gasoline Markets: Empirical Evidence from Contract Changes in Southern California," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 317-328, March.
    18. 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.
    19. Slade, Margaret E, 1987. "Interfirm Rivalry in a Repeated Game: An Empirical Test of Tacit Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 499-516, June.
    20. Andrew Eckert & Douglas S. West, 2004. "A tale of two cities: Price uniformity and price volatility in gasoline retailing," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 38(1), pages 25-46, March.
    21. Lal, Rajiv & Matutes, Carmen, 1994. "Retail Pricing and Advertising Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 345-370, July.
    22. Pashigian, B Peter, 1988. "Demand Uncertainty and Sales: A Study of Fashion and Markdown Pricin g," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 936-953, December.
    23. Barron, John M & Taylor, Beck A & Umbeck, John R, 2000. "A Theory of Quality-Related Differences in Retail Margins: Why There Is a "Premium" on Premium Gasoline," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(4), pages 550-569, October.
    24. Eckert, Andrew & West, Douglas S, 2004. "Retail Gasoline Price Cycles across Spatially Dispersed Gasoline Stations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 245-273, April.
    25. Eckert, Andrew, 2003. "Retail price cycles and the presence of small firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 151-170, February.
    26. Shepard, Andrea, 1990. "Pricing Behavior and Vertical Contracts in Retail Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 427-431, May.
    27. Barron, John M. & Taylor, Beck A. & Umbeck, John R., 2004. "Number of sellers, average prices, and price dispersion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1041-1066, November.
    28. Andrew Eckert, 2002. "Retail price cycles and response asymmetry," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 52-77, February.
    29. Daniel Hosken & David Reiffen, 2004. "How Retailers Determine Which Products Should Go on Sale: Evidence From Store-Level Data," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 141-177, June.
    30. Andrea Shepard, 1993. "Contractual Form, Retail Price, and Asset Characteristics in Gasoline Retailing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(1), pages 58-77, Spring.
    31. Margaret E. Slade, 1992. "Vancouver's Gasoline-Price Wars: An Empirical Exercise in Uncovering Supergame Strategies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(2), pages 257-276.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Oystein Foros & Frode Steen, 2008. "Gasoline Prices Jump Up on Mondays: an Outcome of Aggressive Competition?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2008-20, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    2. Benjamin Atkinson & Andrew Eckert & Douglas S. West, 2009. "Price Matching And The Domino Effect In A Retail Gasoline Market," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 568-588, July.
    3. repec:dgr:rugsom:14027-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Alderighi, Marco & Baudino, Marco, 2015. "The pricing behavior of Italian gas stations: Some evidence from the Cuneo retail fuel market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 33-46.
    5. Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Siekmann, Manuel, 2015. "Price dispersion and station heterogeneity on German retail gasoline markets," DICE Discussion Papers 171, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    6. Justus Haucap & Ulrich Heimeshoff & Manuel Siekmann, 2017. "Fuel Prices and Station Heterogeneity on Retail Gasoline Markets," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 6).
    7. Mariano Tappata & Jing Yan, 2017. "Competition in Retail Petrol Markets," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 201-218, September.
    8. 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.
    9. Sylvain Benoît & Yannick Lucotte & Sébastien Ringuedé, 2019. "Competition and price stickiness: Evidence from the French retail gasoline market," Working Papers hal-02292332, HAL.
    10. Elliott, Robert & Sun, Puyang & Zhu, Tong, 2020. "Shell shocked: The impact of foreign entry on the gasoline retail market in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    11. Noel, Michael D., 2015. "Do Edgeworth price cycles lead to higher or lower prices?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 81-93.
    12. David P. Byrne, Gordon W. Leslie, and Roger Ware, 2015. "How do Consumers Respond to Gasoline Price Cycles?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    13. Firgo, Matthias & Pennerstorfer, Dieter & Weiss, Christoph R., 2015. "Centrality and pricing in spatially differentiated markets: The case of gasoline," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 81-90.
    14. Robert Clark & Jean-François Houde, 2014. "The Effect of Explicit Communication on pricing: Evidence from the Collapse of a Gasoline Cartel," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 191-228, June.
    15. Arezoo Ghazanfari & Armin Razmjoo, 2022. "The Effect of Market Isolation on Competitive Behavior in Retail Petrol Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-33, July.
    16. Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Siekmann, Manuel, 2016. "Selling gasoline as a by-product: The impact of market structure on local prices," DICE Discussion Papers 240, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    17. 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.
    18. Robert Gagné & Simon van Norden & Bruno Versaevel, 2003. "Testing Optimal Punishment Mechanisms Under Price Regulation: the Case of the Retail Market for Gasoline," CIRANO Working Papers 2003s-57, CIRANO.
    19. Alex Perez & Juan Sebastián Vélez-Velásquez, 2022. "Price Dispersion and Wholesale Costs Shocks in the Colombian Retail Gasoline Markets," Borradores de Economia 1220, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    20. Woo-Hyung Hong & Daeyong Lee, 2020. "Asymmetric pricing dynamics with market power: investigating island data of the retail gasoline market," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 2181-2221, May.
    21. Noel, Michael D., 2012. "Edgeworth Price Cycles and intertemporal price discrimination," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 942-954.

    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:indorg:v:26:y:2008:i:6:p:1425-1436. 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/inca/505551 .

    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.