IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ijecbs/v10y2003i2p157-168.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uniform Gasoline Price Regulation: Consequences for Consumer Welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Keeley
  • Kenneth Elzinga

Abstract

In this paper, we assess the long-run implications for consumer welfare of proposed uniform gasoline price regulation. Such regulation would allow lessee dealers to ignore the terms of their lease agreements and purchase gasoline at the 'rack' (i.e., a wholesale distribution terminal) or from whomever and wherever they choose (most typically a 'jobber', i.e., an independent distributor). We show that such regulation would harm consumer welfare by raising wholesale and retail prices without benefiting lessee dealers. Prices would increase because the proposed regulation would prohibit efficient pricing that reflects differences in costs and demand that vary by geographic area and by type of distribution. We also show that even under the assumption that price differences result solely from price discrimination, uniform price regulation will not necessarily benefit consumers or all lessee dealers.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Keeley & Kenneth Elzinga, 2003. "Uniform Gasoline Price Regulation: Consequences for Consumer Welfare," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 157-168.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ijecbs:v:10:y:2003:i:2:p:157-168
    DOI: 10.1080/13571510305062
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13571510305062
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13571510305062?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. William Comanor & Jon Riddle, 2003. "The Costs of Regulation: Branded Open Supply and Uniform Pricing of Gasoline," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 135-155.
    2. Blass, Asher A & Carlton, Dennis W, 2001. "The Choice of Organizational Form in Gasoline Retailing and the Cost of Laws That Limit That Choice," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 511-524, October.
    3. Barron, John M & Umbeck, John R, 1984. "The Effects of Different Contractual Arrangements: The Case of Retail Gasoline Markets," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 313-328, October.
    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. Andrew Eckert & Douglas West, 2013. "Proliferation of Brewers’ Brands and Price Uniformity in Canadian Beer Markets," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(1), pages 63-83, February.
    2. Yuya Sasaki & Arthur Caplan, 2008. "Matching Heterogeneous Traders in Quantity-Regulated Markets," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 31(4), pages 341-362, May.

    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. Legros, Patrick & Newman, Andrew F., 2017. "Demand-driven integration and divorcement policy," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 306-325.
    2. Michiel Bijlsma & Viktoria Kocsis & Victoria Shestalova & Gijsbert Zwart, 2008. "Vertical foreclosure: a policy framework," CPB Document 157, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    3. Arturs Kalnins, 2017. "Pricing Variation Within Dual-Distribution Chains: The Different Implications of Externalities and Signaling for High- and Low-Quality Brands," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 139-152, January.
    4. Amy Schultheis & Daniel N.K. Johnson & Kristina M. Lybecker & Devin Nadar, 2016. "Buy Here, or Keep Driving? The Effect of Geographic Market Density on Retail Gas Prices," Journal of Business, LAR Center Press, vol. 1(1), pages 12-20, March.
    5. John M. Barron & Beck A. Taylor & John R. Umbeck, 2004. "Will Open Supply Lower Retail Gasoline Prices?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(1), pages 63-77, January.
    6. William Comanor & Jon Riddle, 2003. "The Costs of Regulation: Branded Open Supply and Uniform Pricing of Gasoline," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 135-155.
    7. Zhang, Xiao-Bing & Fei, Yinxin & Zheng, Ying & Zhang, Lei, 2020. "Price ceilings as focal points to reach price uniformity: Evidence from a Chinese gasoline market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    8. Marissa Beck & Fiona Scott Morton, 2021. "Evaluating the Evidence on Vertical Mergers," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 59(2), pages 273-302, September.
    9. U, Peter Lee, 2000. "Competition Policy in the Philippine Downstream Oil Industry," Discussion Papers PASCN DP 2000-14, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    10. Stephen Martin, 2012. "Market Structure and Market Performance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 40(2), pages 87-108, March.
    11. Simshauser, P., 2020. "Merchant utilities and boundaries of the firm: vertical integration in energy-only markets," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2039, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    12. 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.
    13. James Langenfeld & Wenqing Li & George Schink, 2003. "Economic Literature on Price Discrimination and its Application to the Uniform Pricing of Gasoline," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 179-193.
    14. Loertscher, Simon & Reisinger, Markus, 2009. "Competitive E?ects of Vertical Integration with Downstream Oligopsony and Oligopoly," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 278, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    15. Lafontaine, Francine, 1999. "Franchising versus corporate ownership: The effect on price dispersion," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 17-34, January.
    16. Emek Basker & Lucia Foster & Shawn Klimek, 2017. "Customer‐employee substitution: Evidence from gasoline stations," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 876-896, December.
    17. Jing Xu & Alan T. Murray, 2019. "Spatial variability in retail gasoline markets," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 581-603, June.
    18. Vázquez-Suárez, Luis & Mejía-Vásquez, Pericles Ramón & Serafim da Silva, Sheila & Sánchez-Gómez, Roberto, 2022. "Gender’s moderating role in the relationship between organisational form and performance in the Spanish supermarket industry," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    19. Simshauser, Paul & Tian, Yuan & Whish-Wilson, Patrick, 2015. "Vertical integration in energy-only electricity markets," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 35-56.
    20. Francine Lafontaine & Emmanuel Raynaud, 2002. "The Role of Residual Claims and Self-Enforcement in Franchise Contracting," NBER Working Papers 8868, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:taf:ijecbs:v:10:y:2003:i:2:p:157-168. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIJB20 .

    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.