IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v30y2012i4p342-351.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Price leadership and coordination in retail gasoline markets with price cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Lewis, Matthew S.

Abstract

This study examines the coordination mechanism used by gasoline stations in the midwestern United States where prices exhibit highly cyclical fluctuations known as Edgeworth cycles. Stations in these markets repeatedly coordinate large marketwide price increases following periods of aggressive price undercutting. By studying these periodic price jumps both over time and across cities, I find that a particular retail chain in each city acts as a price leader initiating each price restoration. The leader signals the new price level to competitors by simultaneously jumping prices at all its stations to a single price. Competitors follow quickly with a large majority of stations jumping to the exact same price within a 24 hour period. The characteristics of the leading firms and the nature of observed price coordination suggest that successful price jumps may be facilitated by the existence of a retailer controlling the prices of a significant number of stations in a city. Identifying the important role of these firms in the market contributes to a broader understanding of price leadership and coordination and highlights another potential reason why price cycles exist in some in retail gasoline markets and not others.

Suggested Citation

  • Lewis, Matthew S., 2012. "Price leadership and coordination in retail gasoline markets with price cycles," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 342-351.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:30:y:2012:i:4:p:342-351
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2011.12.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718711001081
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2011.12.002?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. Michael D. Noel, 2007. "Edgeworth Price Cycles: Evidence From The Toronto Retail Gasoline Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 69-92, March.
    2. Michael D. Noel, 2008. "Edgeworth Price Cycles and Focal Prices: Computational Dynamic Markov Equilibria," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 345-377, June.
    3. Matthew S. Lewis, 2009. "Temporary Wholesale Gasoline Price Spikes Have Long-Lasting Retail Effects: The Aftermath of Hurricane Rita," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 581-605, August.
    4. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 1988. "A Theory of Dynamic Oligopoly, II: Price Competition, Kinked Demand Curves, and Edgeworth Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(3), pages 571-599, May.
    5. Raymond J. Deneckere & Dan Kovenock, 1992. "Price Leadership," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 143-162.
      • Raymond Deneckere & Dan Kovenock, 1988. "Price Leadership," Discussion Papers 773, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    6. Doyle, Joseph & Muehlegger, Erich & Samphantharak, Krislert, 2010. "Edgeworth cycles revisited," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 651-660, May.
    7. Michael D. Noel, 2007. "Edgeworth Price Cycles, Cost-Based Pricing, and Sticky Pricing in Retail Gasoline Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 324-334, May.
    8. Andrew Eckert & Douglas S. West, 2004. "A tale of two cities: Price uniformity and price volatility in gasoline retailing," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 38(1), pages 25-46, March.
    9. Deneckere, Raymond J & Kovenock, Dan & Lee, Robert, 1992. "A Model of Price Leadership Based on Consumer Loyalty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 147-156, June.
    10. Zhongmin Wang, 2008. "Collusive Communication and Pricing Coordination in a Retail Gasoline Market," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 32(1), pages 35-52, February.
    11. Eckert, Andrew, 2003. "Retail price cycles and the presence of small firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 151-170, February.
    12. Rotemberg, Julio J & Saloner, Garth, 1990. "Collusive Price Leadership," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 93-111, September.
    13. Benjamin Atkinson, 2009. "Retail Gasoline Price Cycles: Evidence from Guelph, Ontario Using Bi-Hourly, Station-Specific Retail Price Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 85-110.
    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. David P. Byrne, Gordon W. Leslie, and Roger Ware, 2015. "How do Consumers Respond to Gasoline Price Cycles?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    2. Noel, Michael D., 2012. "Edgeworth Price Cycles and intertemporal price discrimination," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 942-954.
    3. Benjamin Atkinson, Andrew Eckert, and Douglas S. West, 2014. "Daily Price Cycles and Constant Margins: Recent Events in Canadian Gasoline Retailing," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    4. Angela S. Bergantino & Claudia Capozza & Mauro Capurso, 2018. "Pricing strategies: who leads and who follows in the air and rail passenger markets in Italy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(46), pages 4937-4953, October.
    5. Noel, Michael D., 2015. "Do Edgeworth price cycles lead to higher or lower prices?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 81-93.
    6. Paul Zimmerman & John Yun & Christopher Taylor, 2013. "Edgeworth Price Cycles in Gasoline: Evidence from the United States," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(3), pages 297-320, May.
    7. Nicolas de Roos & Hajime Katayama, 2013. "Gasoline Price Cycles Under Discrete Time Pricing," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89(285), pages 175-193, June.
    8. Noel, Michael D. & Chu, Lanlan, 2015. "Forecasting gasoline prices in the presence of Edgeworth Price Cycles," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 204-214.
    9. Michael D. Noel, 2019. "Calendar synchronization of gasoline price increases," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 355-370, April.
    10. Isakower, Sean & Wang, Zhongmin, 2014. "A comparison of regular price cycles in gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 445-454.
    11. Perdiguero, Jordi & Jiménez, Juan Luis, 2021. "Price coordination in the Spanish oil market: The monday effect," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    12. Seaton, Jonathan S. & Waterson, Michael, 2013. "Identifying and characterising price leadership in British supermarkets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 392-403.
    13. Hurtado, Carlos & González, Julia, 2024. "Price differences within retail gasoline markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    14. Wills-Johnson, Nick & Bloch, Harry, 2010. "A simple spatial model for Edgeworth Cycles," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 334-336, September.
    15. Arezoo Ghazanfari & Armin Razmjoo, 2022. "The Effect of Market Isolation on Competitive Behavior in Retail Petrol Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-33, July.
    16. Elliott, Robert & Sun, Puyang & Zhu, Tong, 2020. "Shell shocked: The impact of foreign entry on the gasoline retail market in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    17. Justus Haucap & Ulrich Heimeshoff & Manuel Siekmann, 2017. "Fuel Prices and Station Heterogeneity on Retail Gasoline Markets," The Energy Journal, , vol. 38(6), pages 81-104, November.
    18. Anderson, Edward, 2011. "A new model for cycles in retail petrol prices," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 210(2), pages 436-447, April.
    19. Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Siekmann, Manuel, 2015. "Price dispersion and station heterogeneity on German retail gasoline markets," DICE Discussion Papers 171, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    20. Tveito, Andreas, 2019. "Coordination and price leadership in an unregulated environment," Working Papers in Economics 4/19, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price leadership; Coordination; Gasoline; Edgeworth Cycle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    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:eee:indorg:v:30:y:2012:i:4:p:342-351. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505551 .

    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.