IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v149y2025ics0140988325004542.html

Fiercer competition for greater savings: Policy mix, competition, and spatial analysis of fuel tax reduction effects

Author

Listed:
  • Moon, Byunggeor

Abstract

Rapid fluctuations in oil prices compel governments to implement various policies. Particularly, when oil prices experience sharp increases and decreases due to uncontrollable external factors, a primary policy tool chosen by governments to stabilize fuel prices for consumers is fuel tax cuts. This study examines the impact of fuel tax cuts on fuel prices during significant oil price surges, focusing on the role of governance structures among gas stations and the competitive dynamics of pricing strategies. Specifically, it is observed that publicly operated gas stations more promptly reflect tax cuts in retail prices, and private gas stations located near these public stations maintain lower prices compared to those that are not adjacent. These findings highlight the importance of competitive market conditions in the administration of tax policies and confirm that achieving policy objectives requires not only tax policy adjustments but also the establishment of competitive market structures from a policy standpoint.

Suggested Citation

  • Moon, Byunggeor, 2025. "Fiercer competition for greater savings: Policy mix, competition, and spatial analysis of fuel tax reduction effects," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:149:y:2025:i:c:s0140988325004542
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108627
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988325004542
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108627?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    2. repec:aen:journl:ej38-6-hauca is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Liu, Ming-Hua & Margaritis, Dimitris & Tourani-Rad, Alireza, 2010. "Is there an asymmetry in the response of diesel and petrol prices to crude oil price changes? Evidence from New Zealand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 926-932, July.
    4. Shanjun Li & Joshua Linn & Erich Muehlegger, 2014. "Gasoline Taxes and Consumer Behavior," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 302-342, November.
    5. Austin, David & Dinan, Terry, 2005. "Clearing the air: The costs and consequences of higher CAFE standards and increased gasoline taxes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 562-582, November.
    6. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D Cattaneo & Max H Farrell, 2020. "Optimal bandwidth choice for robust bias-corrected inference in regression discontinuity designs," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(2), pages 192-210.
    7. repec:aen:journl:ej37-1-chesnes is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Kpodar, Kangni & Imam, Patrick Amir, 2021. "To pass (or not to pass) through international fuel price changes to domestic fuel prices in developing countries: What are the drivers?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    9. Marion, Justin & Muehlegger, Erich, 2011. "Fuel tax incidence and supply conditions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1202-1212.
    10. George Deltas, 2008. "Retail Gasoline Price Dynamics And Local Market Power," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 613-628, September.
    11. Laura Grigolon & Mathias Reynaert & Frank Verboven, 2018. "Consumer Valuation of Fuel Costs and Tax Policy: Evidence from the European Car Market," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 193-225, August.
    12. Schnitzer, Monika & Montag, Felix & Sagimuldina, Alina, 2020. "Are temporary value-added tax reductions passed on to consumers? Evidence from Germany’s stimulus," CEPR Discussion Papers 15189, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    13. Matthew Chesnes, 2016. "Asymmetric Pass-Through in U.S. Gasoline Prices," The Energy Journal, , vol. 37(1), pages 153-180, January.
    14. Johan Gars & Daniel Spiro & Henrik Wachtmeister, 2022. "The effect of European fuel-tax cuts on the oil income of Russia," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 7(10), pages 989-997, October.
    15. repec:aen:journl:32-3-a01 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Francisco Teixeira Raeder & Niagara Rodrigues & Luciano Dias Losekann, 2022. "Asymmetry in Gasoline Price Transmission: How do Fuel Pricing Strategy and the Ethanol Addition Mandate Affect Consumers?," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 12(4), pages 517-527, July.
    17. Leonardo C. B. Cardoso & Carlos Frederico A. Uchôa & Williams Huamani & David R. Just & Raúl V. Gomez, 2022. "Price effects of spatial competition in retail fuel markets: the impact of a new rival nearby," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(1), pages 81-105, February.
    18. Parry, Ian & Strand, Jon, 2012. "International fuel tax assessment: an application to Chile," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 127-144, April.
    19. Blair, Benjamin F. & Campbell, Randall C. & Mixon, Phillip A., 2017. "Price pass-through in US gasoline markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 42-49.
    20. Justus Haucap & Ulrich Heimeshoff & Manuel Siekmann, 2017. "Fuel Prices and Station Heterogeneity on Retail Gasoline Markets," The Energy Journal, , vol. 38(6), pages 81-104, November.
    21. 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.
    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. Chen, Li-Hsueh & Finney, Miles & Lai, Kon S., 2005. "A threshold cointegration analysis of asymmetric price transmission from crude oil to gasoline prices," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 233-239, November.
    24. Felix Montag & Alina Sagimuldina & Monika Schnitzer, 2020. "Are temporary value-added tax reductions passed on to consumers? Evidence from Germany's stimulus," Papers 2008.08511, arXiv.org.
    25. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell & Roc ́ıo Titiunik, 2017. "rdrobust: Software for regression-discontinuity designs," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 17(2), pages 372-404, June.
    26. 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.
    27. 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.
    28. Gabriel E. Lade & James Bushnell, 2019. "Fuel Subsidy Pass-Through and Market Structure: Evidence from the Renewable Fuel Standard," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 563-592.
    29. Adamos Adamou & Sofronis Clerides & Theodoros Zachariadis, 2014. "Welfare Implications of Car Feebates: A Simulation Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(578), pages 420-443, August.
    30. 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.
    31. 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.
    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. Perdiguero-García, Jordi, 2013. "Symmetric or asymmetric oil prices? A meta-analysis approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 389-397.
    2. 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.
    3. Blair, Benjamin F. & Campbell, Randall C. & Mixon, Phillip A., 2017. "Price pass-through in US gasoline markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 42-49.
    4. Palencia-González, Francisco J. & Navío-Marco, Julio & Juberías-Cáceres, Gema, 2020. "Analysis of brand influence in the rockets and feathers effect using disaggregated data," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    5. Zacharias Bragoudakis & Stavros Degiannakis & George Filis, 2019. "Oil and pump prices: is there any asymmetry in the Greek oil downstream sector?," Working Papers 268, Bank of Greece.
    6. Chaudhry, Muhammad Imran & Irfan, Ghina & Al-Titi, Omar, 2025. "Asymmetric transmission of crude oil prices into fuel prices - Evidence from Pakistan," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    7. 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.
    8. 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).
    9. 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.
    10. Amountzias, Chrysovalantis, 2023. "Do petrol prices rise faster than they fall? Evidence from the UK retail and wholesale petrol sectors," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    11. Valadkhani, Abbas & Smyth, Russell, 2018. "Asymmetric responses in the timing, and magnitude, of changes in Australian monthly petrol prices to daily oil price changes," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 89-100.
    12. Chen, Hao & Sun, Zesheng, 2021. "International crude oil price, regulation and asymmetric response of China's gasoline price," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    13. repec:dgr:rugsom:14027-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    14. 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.
    15. Remer, Marc, 2015. "An empirical investigation of the determinants of asymmetric pricing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 46-56.
    16. Koopmans, Carl & Lieshout, Rogier, 2016. "Airline cost changes: To what extent are they passed through to the passenger?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-11.
    17. 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.
    18. Prakash, Kushneel & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell, 2020. "Petrol prices and subjective wellbeing," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    19. Valadkhani, Abbas, 2013. "Do petrol prices rise faster than they fall when the market shows significant disequilibria?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 66-80.
    20. da Silva, André Suriane & Vasconcelos, Cláudio Roberto Fóffano & Vasconcelos, Silvinha Pinto & de Mattos, Rogério Silva, 2014. "Symmetric transmission of prices in the retail gasoline market in Brazil," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 11-21.
    21. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:149:y:2025:i:c:s0140988325004542. 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.