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

Author

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  • Erwan Gautier

    (LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - IEMN-IAE Nantes - Institut d'Économie et de Management de Nantes - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Nantes - UN - Université de Nantes)

  • Ronan Le Saout

    (ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique)

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 an adjustment cost model. Using a reduced form statedependent 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

  • Erwan Gautier & Ronan Le Saout, 2012. "The Dynamics of Gasoline Prices: Evidence from Daily French Micro Data," Working Papers hal-00759095, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00759095
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    price stickiness; adjustment 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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