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The Dynamics of Gasoline Prices: Evidence from Daily French Micro Data

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  • Gautier, E.
  • Le Saout, R.

Abstract

Using millions of individual gasoline prices collected at a daily frequency, we examine the speed at which market refined oil prices are transmitted to consumer liquid fuel prices. We find that on average gasoline prices are modified once a week and the distribution of price changes displays a M-shape as predicted by a menu-cost model. Using a reduced form state-dependent pricing model with time-varying random thresholds, we find that the degree of pass through of wholesale prices to retail gasoline prices is on average 0.77 for diesel and 0.67 for petrol. The duration for a shock to be fully transmitted into prices is about 10 days. There is no significant asymmetry in the transmission of wholesale price to retail prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Gautier, E. & Le Saout, R., 2012. "The Dynamics of Gasoline Prices: Evidence from Daily French Micro Data," Working papers 375, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:375
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    2. Mats Petter Kahl, 2023. "Was the German fuel discount passed on to consumers?," Working Paper Series in Economics 419, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    3. 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).
    4. Sylvain Benoît & Yannick Lucotte & Sébastien Ringuedé, 2019. "Competition and price stickiness: Evidence from the French retail gasoline market," Working Papers hal-02292332, HAL.
    5. Erwan Gautier & Magali Marx & Paul Vertier, 2023. "How Do Gasoline Prices Respond to a Cost Shock?," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 707-741.
    6. Montag, Felix & Sagimuldina, Alina & Winter, Christoph, 2024. "When does mandatory price disclosure lower prices? Evidence from the German fuel market," Working Papers 344, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    7. Fernando Alvarez & Andrea Ferrara & Erwan Gautier & Hervé Le Bihan & Francesco Lippi, 2021. "Empirical Investigation of a Sufficient Statistic for Monetary Shocks," Working papers 839, Banque de France.
    8. Charlot, Philippe & Marimoutou, Vêlayoudom, 2014. "On the relationship between the prices of oil and the precious metals: Revisiting with a multivariate regime-switching decision tree," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 456-467.
    9. Bragoudakis, Zacharias & Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2019. "Oil and pump prices: Is there any asymmetry in the Greek oil downstream sector?," MPRA Paper 95407, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Deltas, George & Polemis, Michael, 2020. "Estimating retail gasoline price dynamics: The effects of sample characteristics and research design," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    11. Nicoletta Berardi & Erwan Gautier & Hervé Le Bihan, 2015. "More Facts about Prices: France Before and During the Great Recession," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(8), pages 1465-1502, December.
    12. Fernando Alvarez & Francesco Lippi & Aleksei Oskolkov, 2023. "The Macroeconomics of Sticky Prices with Generalized Hazard Functions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(2), pages 989-1038.
    13. Nicoletta Berardi & Erwan Gautier & Hervé Le Bihan, 2013. "Les ajustements individuels de prix à la consommation en France : de nouveaux résultats sur la période 2003-2011," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 460(1), pages 5-35.
    14. Boroumand, Raphaël Homayoun & Goutte, Stéphane & Porcher, Simon & Porcher, Thomas, 2016. "Asymmetric evidence of gasoline price responses in France: A Markov-switching approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 467-476.
    15. De Santis, Roberto A. & Tornese, Tommaso, 2023. "Energy supply shocks’ nonlinearities on output and prices," Working Paper Series 2834, European Central Bank.
    16. Bergeaud, Antonin & Raimbault, Juste, 2020. "An empirical analysis of the spatial variability of fuel prices in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 131-143.
    17. Cárdenas, Jeisson & Gutiérrez, Luis H. & Otero, Jesús, 2017. "Investigating diesel market integration in France: Evidence from micro data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 314-321.
    18. Erwan Gautier & Ronan Le Saout, 2015. "L'ajustement microéconomique des prix des carburants en France," Working Papers hal-01195759, HAL.
    19. Qin, Xiao & Zhou, Chunyang & Wu, Chongfeng, 2016. "Revisiting asymmetric price transmission in the U.S. oil-gasoline markets: A multiple threshold error-correction analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 583-591.
    20. Matthew Chesnes, 2016. "Asymmetric Pass-Through in U.S. Gasoline Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    21. Boroumand, Raphaël Homayoun & Porcher, Thomas & Urom, Christian, 2021. "Negative oil price shocks transmission: The comparative effects of the GFC, shale oil boom, and Covid-19 downturn on French gasoline prices," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    22. González, Xulia & Moral, María J., 2019. "Effects of antitrust prosecution on retail fuel prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    23. David Vincent, 2019. "Estimating (S,s) rule-regression models," London Stata Conference 2019 03, Stata Users Group.
    24. Gregor, Leonard & Haucap, Justus, 2024. "The Rise of Refinery Margins," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302420, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    price stickiness; menu costs; (S; s) models; gasoline price.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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