IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v43y2024i3p804-817.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self‐service bans and gasoline prices: The effect of allowing consumers to pump their own gas

Author

Listed:
  • Vitor Melo

Abstract

Most of the world's population lives in countries that ban the self‐service sale of gasoline. Causal effects of this regulation can hardly be assessed in these countries due to a lack of policy changes, but a recent quasi‐experiment in the state of Oregon allows us to analyze the impact of the ban. From 1992 to 2017, the state of Oregon was one of two U.S. states that banned self‐service at gasoline stations. Oregon adjusted regulations at the start of 2018 to allow self‐service at gasoline stations in counties with populations below 40,000 individuals. I examine the repeal of this self‐service ban and its effects on gasoline prices. I apply a difference‐in‐differences design using high frequency data of gasoline prices and find that repealing the self‐service ban reduced gasoline prices by 4.4 cents per gallon in affected Oregon counties. This effect represents approximately $90 in expected annual savings for a household with three licensed drivers.

Suggested Citation

  • Vitor Melo, 2024. "Self‐service bans and gasoline prices: The effect of allowing consumers to pump their own gas," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(3), pages 804-817, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:43:y:2024:i:3:p:804-817
    DOI: 10.1002/pam.22564
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22564
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pam.22564?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:wly:jpamgt:v:43:y:2024:i:3:p:804-817. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    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.