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Rising household diesel consumption in the United States: A cause for concern? Evidence on asymmetric pricing

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  • Fosten, Jack

Abstract

Papers in the literature have thus far overlooked the projected increase in U.S. diesel car share when looking at asymmetries in petroleum pricing. This paper addresses this issue by comparing retail gasoline and diesel prices in order to see whether they rise faster than they fall given the price of their upstream input, crude oil. This phenomenon has been termed in the literature as “Rockets and Feathers.” We apply the threshold vector error correction model (TVECM) of Hansen and Seo (2002) which has not yet been applied in the literature. We account for the 2008 structural break to crude oil and petroleum prices by splitting the sample using evidence from the recent structural break unit root test of Kim and Perron (2009). Both markets seem to price symmetrically before the 2008 break, but we find evidence of asymmetric pricing after 2008 in diesel prices, and not in gasoline prices. Given that the diesel market is small relative to the gasoline market and therefore more open to price exploitation, the ongoing cost increases associated with the policy of switching to Ultra Low Sulphur diesel (ULSD) from 2006 to 2010 could be at the heart of this asymmetry. With this in mind, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission should monitor diesel prices as the market share grows, in order to ensure that consumers are not adversely affected.

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  • Fosten, Jack, 2012. "Rising household diesel consumption in the United States: A cause for concern? Evidence on asymmetric pricing," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1514-1522.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:34:y:2012:i:5:p:1514-1522
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2012.06.025
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    Cited by:

    1. Bahram Adrangi & Arjun Chatrath & Joseph Macri & Kambiz Raffiee, 2018. "U.S. Diesel Fuel Price Responses To The Global Crude Oil Supply And Demand," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(04), pages 1-25, December.
    2. Valadkhani, Abbas & Ghazanfari, Arezoo & Nguyen, Jeremy & Moradi-Motlagh, Amir, 2021. "The asymmetric effects of COVID19 on wholesale fuel prices in Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 255-266.
    3. Bastianin, Andrea & Galeotti, Marzio & Manera, Matteo, 2014. "Forecasting the oil–gasoline price relationship: Do asymmetries help?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(S1), pages 44-56.
    4. 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.
    5. Phaisan Pattanakooha & Pongsa Pornchaiwisetgul, 2015. "The Effect of Stock, Government Policy, and Monopoly on Asymmetric Price Transmission in Thailand," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 5(4), pages 926-933.
    6. Bisharat Hussain Chang & Suresh Kumar Oad Rajput & Niaz Hussain Ghumro, 2018. "Asymmetric Impact Of Exchange Rate Changes On The Trade Balance: Does Global Financial Crisis Matter?," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(04), pages 1-18, December.
    7. Zhang, Wenbei & Luckert, Marty & Qiu, Feng, 2023. "Asymmetric price transmission and impulse responses from U.S. crude oil to jet fuel and diesel markets," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    8. Karsten Schweikert, 2019. "Asymmetric price transmission in the US and German fuel markets: a quantile autoregression approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1071-1095, March.
    9. Colin A. Carter & K. Aleks Schaefer & Daniel Scheitrum, 2021. "Piecemeal Farm Regulation and the U.S. Commerce Clause," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(3), pages 1141-1163, May.
    10. Bakhat, Mohcine & Rosselló, Jaume & Sansó, Andreu, 2022. "Price transmission between oil and gasoline and diesel: A new measure for evaluating time asymmetries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    11. Cook, Steven & Fosten, Jack, 2019. "Replicating rockets and feathers," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 139-151.
    12. Janelle Mann, 2016. "Rockets and feathers meet markup margins: Applications to the oil and gasoline industry," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 772-788, May.
    13. Bagnai, Alberto & Mongeau Ospina, Christian Alexander, 2018. "Asymmetries, outliers and structural stability in the US gasoline market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 250-260.
    14. Chi, Junwook, 2016. "Long- and short-run asymmetric responses of motor-vehicle travel to fuel price variations: New evidence from a nonlinear ARDL approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 126-134.
    15. Valadkhani, Abbas & Smyth, Russell & Vahid, Farshid, 2015. "Asymmetric pricing of diesel at its source," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(PA), pages 183-194.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gasoline pricing; Diesel pricing; Asymmetric adjustment; Threshold cointegration; Cointegration; Structural beaks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General

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