IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/anp/en2016/169.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price Asymmetry And Retailers Heterogeneity In Brazilian Gas Stations

Author

Listed:
  • LEONARDO CHAVES BORGES CARDOSO
  • MAURÍCIO VAZ LOBO BITTENCOURT
  • ELENA GRACE IRWIN

Abstract

In a competitive market situation, a symmetric price transmission is expected, and the speed of adjustment of the market should be equal, no matter in which direction input prices are going (up or down). When inputs' prices increase, firms need to pass on costs to avoid negative profit situation. When they go down, firms' reaction is in a direction to avoid market share losses. Therefore, if firms react faster when inputs' prices increase than when they decrease (positive asymmetry), it means a capture of consumers' surplus by the firms. When firms' reaction is slowly when inputs' prices decrease than when they decreases (negative asymmetry), the surplus transfer is from firms to consumers. So far, studies regarding price asymmetry in Brazil used only aggregated database, which likely suffers by summation bias. In a hypothetical city with just two gas stations, one with positive asymmetric behavior and other with negative one, there is high chance that this city accepts the null of a symmetric behavior. The present study will try to overcome this problem with a gas station level dataset. The National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) has a detailed database with weekly information for gas stations in an unbalanced database, where more than 40% of population is covered every week. This firm-level database has information as purchase and selling price for gasoline, name of gas stations, brand and complete address. This information allows answering if there is price asymmetry in Brazil at firm level. Because database has more than 2 million of observations for more than 17.000 different gas stations, it is also possible to obtain results of price asymmetry against fixed effects to check which of these effects matter to change the likelihood of firms to have price asymmetry. Results indicate that there is heterogeneity regarding price transmission among firms: 71% of gas stations had no asymmetry, 23% had a positive asymmetry pattern and 6% of them ha
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Leonardo Chaves Borges Cardoso & Maurício Vaz Lobo Bittencourt & Elena Grace Irwin, 2018. "Price Asymmetry And Retailers Heterogeneity In Brazilian Gas Stations," Anais do XLIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 44th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 169, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    • Handle: RePEc:anp:en2016:169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.anpec.org.br/encontro/2016/submissao/files_I/i10-4a1bf043280771944e32f51e82cb716e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew S. Lewis & Howard P. Marvel, 2011. "When Do Consumers Search?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 457-483, September.
    2. Ball, Laurence & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1994. "Asymmetric Price Adjustment and Economic Fluctuations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(423), pages 247-261, March.
    3. Sam Peltzman, 2000. "Prices Rise Faster than They Fall," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 466-502, June.
    4. Zacharias Bragoudakis & Dimitrios Sideris, 2012. "Do retail gasoline prices adjust symmetrically to crude oil price changes? the case of the Greek oil market," Economic Bulletin, Bank of Greece, issue 37, pages 7-21, December.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Robert J. Barro, 1972. "A Theory of Monopolistic Price Adjustment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 39(1), pages 17-26.
    8. Jochen Meyer & Stephan von Cramon‐Taubadel, 2004. "Asymmetric Price Transmission: A Survey," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 581-611, November.
    9. Huanxing Yang & Lixin Ye, 2008. "Search with learning: understanding asymmetric price adjustments," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 547-564, June.
    10. 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.
    11. Joris Pinkse & Margaret E. Slade & Craig Brett, 2002. "Spatial Price Competition: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1111-1153, May.
    12. Henry W. Kinnucan & Olan D. Forker, 1987. "Asymmetry in Farm-Retail Price Transmission for Major Dairy Products," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 69(2), pages 285-292.
    13. von Cramon-Taubadel, Stephan, 1998. "Estimating Asymmetric Price Transmission with the Error Correction Representation: An application to the German Pork Market," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 25(1), pages 1-18.
    14. George Deltas, 2008. "Retail Gasoline Price Dynamics And Local Market Power," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 613-628, September.
    15. Canêdo-Pinheiro, Mauricio, 2012. "Assimetrias na transmissão dos preços dos combustíveis: O caso do óleo diesel no Brasil," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 66(4), December.
    16. Mariano Tappata, 2009. "Rockets and feathers: Understanding asymmetric pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(4), pages 673-687, December.
    17. Riemer P. Faber, 2009. "Asymmetric Price Responses of Gasoline Stations: Evidence for Heterogeneity of Retailers," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-106/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    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. 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).

    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. Jens‐Peter Loy & Dieter Pennerstorfer & Daniela Rroshi & Christoph Weiss & Biliana Yontcheva, 2022. "Consumer Information and Price Transmission: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 631-683, September.
    2. Loy, Jens-Peter & Weiss, Christoph R. & Glauben, Thomas, 2016. "Asymmetric cost pass-through? Empirical evidence on the role of market power, search and menu costs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 184-192.
    3. 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.
    4. Christos Genakos & Blair Yuan Lyu & Mario Pagliero, 2024. "Asymmetric pass-through and competition," CEP Discussion Papers dp2028, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Rahman, Mohammad Chhiddikur, 2020. "Welfare Impact of Asymmetric Price Transmission on Bangladesh Rice Consumers," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 242248, September.
    6. Noel, Michael D. & Qiang, Hongjie, 2019. "The role of information in retail gasoline price dispersion," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 173-187.
    7. Rrukaj, Ritvana & Steen, Frode, 2024. "Asymmetric cost transmission and market power in retail gasoline markets," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 8/2024, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    8. Sven Heim, 2021. "Asymmetric cost pass-through and consumer search: empirical evidence from online platforms," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 227-260, June.
    9. Guojun He & Jeffrey T. LaFrance & Jeffrey M. Perloff & Richard Volpe, 2024. "How do Everyday-Low-Price Supermarkets Adjust Their Prices?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 64(1), pages 117-146, February.
    10. Sylvain Benoît & Yannick Lucotte & Sébastien Ringuedé, 2019. "Competition and price stickiness: Evidence from the French retail gasoline market," Working Papers hal-02292332, HAL.
    11. Heim, Sven, 2019. "Rockets and feathers: Asymmetric pricing and consumer search - Evidence from electricity retailing," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-070, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2019.
    12. David P. Byrne, 2019. "Gasoline Pricing in the Country and the City," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 55(2), pages 209-235, September.
    13. Xu, Jiayi & Zhang, Xiao-Bing & Liu, Yang, 2024. "Asymmetric search behavior for gasoline prices: Evidence from the Chinese gasoline market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 699-712.
    14. Mulder, Machiel & Willems, Bert, 2019. "The Dutch retail electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 228-239.
    15. Bulutay, Muhammed & Hales, David & Julius, Patrick & Tasch, Weiwei, 2021. "Imperfect tacit collusion and asymmetric price transmission," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 584-599.
    16. Antoniou, Fabio & Fiocco, Raffaele & Guo, Dongyu, 2017. "Asymmetric price adjustments: A supply side approach," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 335-360.
    17. Diego Escobari, 2013. "Asymmetric Price Adjustments in Airlines," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 74-85, March.
    18. Mulder, M. & Willems, Bert, 2016. "Competition in Retail Electricity Markets : An Assessment of Ten Years Dutch Experience," Discussion Paper 2016-011, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.
    19. Yaya KEHO & Aïssata SOBIA CAMARA, 2012. "Vertical Price Transmission in Local Rice Markets in Côte d’Ivoire: Are Consumers Really Right?," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 2(4), pages 552-564.
    20. repec:dgr:rugsom:14027-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Remer, Marc, 2015. "An empirical investigation of the determinants of asymmetric pricing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 46-56.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C24 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • R32 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:anp:en2016:169. 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: Rodrigo Zadra Armond (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/anpecea.html .

    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.