IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-22-00574.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cartels and asymmetric cost pass-through: evidence from Brazilian gas stations

Author

Listed:
  • Thiago Cacicedo

    (Heriot-Watt University)

Abstract

I analyse if collusive agreements are responsible for asymmetric cost pass-through in the Brazilian retail gasoline market. I find that, overall, Brazilian stations do not present asymmetric cost pass-through. However, this phenomenon is observed in stations that belong to a cartel. This different behavior is due to cartelised stations increasing their price more than non-cartelised ones when faced by increases in costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Thiago Cacicedo, 2022. "Cartels and asymmetric cost pass-through: evidence from Brazilian gas stations," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(4), pages 2034-2042.
  • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00574
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2022/Volume42/EB-22-V42-I4-P168.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Severin Boreinstein & Andrea Shepard, 1996. "Dynamic Pricing in Retail Gasoline Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(3), pages 429-451, Autumn.
    2. 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.
    3. Minten, Bart & Kyle, Steven, 2000. "Retail Margins, Price Transmission and Price Asymmetry in Urban Food Markets: The Case of Kinshasa (Zaire)," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, March.
    4. Mariano Tappata, 2009. "Rockets and feathers: Understanding asymmetric pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(4), pages 673-687, 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. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. B Minten & S Kyle, 2000. "Retail margins, price transmission and price asymmetry in urban food markets: the case of Kinshasa (Zaire)," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23.
    11. Andrew Eckert, 2002. "Retail price cycles and response asymmetry," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 52-77, February.
    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. Polemis, Michael L. & Fotis, Panagiotis N., 2014. "The taxation effect on gasoline price asymmetry nexus: Evidence from both sides of the Atlantic," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 225-233.
    2. 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.
    3. Carabalí , Jaime & Meneses , Luis & Perez, Alex & Rodriguez, Manuel, 2022. "Retail Prices of Gasoline and Asymmetric Adjustment to Wholesale Prices in Colombia," Journal of Economic Development, The Economic Research Institute, Chung-Ang University, vol. 47(3), pages 73-105, September.
    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. Remer, Marc, 2015. "An empirical investigation of the determinants of asymmetric pricing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 46-56.
    6. Jordi Perdiguero-García, 2010. "“Symmetric or asymmetric gasoline prices? A metaanalysis approach”," IREA Working Papers 201013, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Nov 2010.
    7. Pal, Debdatta & Mitra, Subrata K., 2016. "Asymmetric oil product pricing in India: Evidence from a multiple threshold nonlinear ARDL model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 314-328.
    8. Pal, Debdatta & Mitra, Subrata K., 2022. "Do airfares respond asymmetrically to fuel price changes? A multiple threshold nonlinear ARDL model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    9. Matthew Chesnes, 2016. "Asymmetric Pass-Through in U.S. Gasoline Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    10. Perdiguero-García, Jordi, 2013. "Symmetric or asymmetric oil prices? A meta-analysis approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 389-397.
    11. 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.
    12. Ralph-C Bayer & Changxia Ke, 2010. "Rockets and Feathers in the Laboratory," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2010-20, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    13. Deltas, George & Polemis, Michael, 2020. "Estimating retail gasoline price dynamics: The effects of sample characteristics and research design," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    14. Apergis, Nicholas & Payne, James E., 2017. "Volatility Modeling of U.S. Metropolitan Retail Gasoline Prices: An Empirical Note," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 48(2), September.
    15. Chou, Kuo-Wei & Tseng, Yi-Heng, 2016. "Oil prices, exchange rate, and the price asymmetry in the Taiwanese retail gasoline market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 733-741.
    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. Taner SEKMEN & Seher Gülşah TOPUZ, 2021. "Asymmetric Oil Price and Exchange Rate Pass-Through in the Turkish Oil-Gasoline Markets," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(2), pages 74-93, June.
    18. Hamid Baghestani & Jorg Bley, 2020. "Do directional predictions of US gasoline prices reveal asymmetries?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 44(2), pages 348-360, April.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cartels; asymmetric price transmission; gasoline market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00574. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.