IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v30y2009i1p85-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retail Gasoline Price Cycles: Evidence from Guelph, Ontario Using Bi-Hourly, Station-Specific Retail Price Data

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin Atkinson

Abstract

This paper uses prices that were directly observed at 27 gasoline stations in Guelph, Ontario, eight times per day for 103 days in late-2005, to examine several basic predictions of a theory of price cycles. It is found that price movements in Guelph are more consistent with the Edgeworth cycle theory than with other dynamic pricing theories. The data also identify some interesting (and somewhat systematic) pricing patterns that have not been identified in previous studies, and which would likely be overlooked with less complete data. These findings are not only of interest to applied economists and policymakers, but also to theoreticians who are interested in refining the theory to make more accurate predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Atkinson, 2009. "Retail Gasoline Price Cycles: Evidence from Guelph, Ontario Using Bi-Hourly, Station-Specific Retail Price Data," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(1), pages 85-110, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:30:y:2009:i:1:p:85-110
    DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-No1-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-No1-4
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-No1-4?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
    ---><---

    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. Anindya Sen, 2005. "Does Increasing the Market Share of Smaller Firms Result in Lower Prices? Empirical Evidence from the Canadian Retail Gasoline Industry," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 26(4), pages 371-389, June.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    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. Fullerton, Thomas M. & Jiménez, Alan A. & Walke, Adam G., 2015. "An econometric analysis of retail gasoline prices in a border metropolitan economy," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 450-461.
    2. 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).
    3. Perdiguero, Jordi & Jiménez, Juan Luis, 2021. "Price coordination in the Spanish oil market: The monday effect," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Packalen, Mikko & Sen, Anindya, 2013. "Static and dynamic merger effects: A market share based empirical analysis," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 12-24.
    6. Sylvain Benoît & Yannick Lucotte & Sébastien Ringuedé, 2019. "Competition and price stickiness: Evidence from the French retail gasoline market," Working Papers hal-02292332, HAL.
    7. 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).
    8. 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).
    9. 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.
    10. Benjamin Atkinson, 2008. "On Retail Gasoline Pricing Websites: Potential Sample Selection Biases and Their Implications for Empirical Research," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(2), pages 161-175, September.
    11. Wills-Johnson, Nick & Bloch, Harry, 2010. "A simple spatial model for Edgeworth Cycles," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 334-336, September.
    12. Hosken, Daniel S. & McMillan, Robert S. & Taylor, Christopher T., 2008. "Retail gasoline pricing: What do we know?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1425-1436, November.
    13. 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.
    14. Wein, Thomas, 2021. "Why abandoning the paradise? Stations incentives to reduce gasoline prices at first," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242362, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Frederik von Waldow & Heike Link, 2024. "Spatial Competition and Pass-through of Fuel Taxes: Evidence from a Quasi-natural Experiment in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2086, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. 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.
    17. Wittmann, Nadine, 2014. "Regulating gasoline retail markets: The case of Germany," Economics Discussion Papers 2014-17, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. Adriaan R. Soetevent & Marco A. Haan & Pim Heijnen, 2014. "Do Auctions and Forced Divestitures Increase Competition? Evidence for Retail Gasoline Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 467-502, September.
    19. Heijnen, Pim & Soetevent, Adriaan R., 2018. "Price competition on graphs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 161-179.
    20. 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.

    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:sae:enejou:v:30:y:2009:i:1:p:85-110. 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: SAGE Publications (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.