Download or read book Essays on Information Competition and Pricing Dynamics in the Retail Gasoline Market written by Woo-Hyung Hong and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation studies the role of information in market performance, and pricing dynamics observed in the retail gasoline market. In Chapter 1, we empirically test whether smartphones, as information-providing devices, can improve market performance and reduce price dispersion. We treat the introduction of smartphones in the Korean gasoline market as a natural experiment to investigate the impact of smartphones on competition among gas stations. Smartphones provided consumers with direct access to price information through OPINET, a government-sponsored Internet website. Our results indicate that the adoption of smartphones is associated with dramatic decreases in price dispersion and average price-cost margins, thereby creating consumer gains. Additionally, we found a sudden decline in entries and a slow increase in exits after the introduction of smartphones. Chapter 2 investigates how and why a link between market power and asymmetric pricing occurs. Exploiting unique island panel data from the Korean gasoline market, we propose geographical separation as a reliable measure of market power. Our findings confirm a positive correlation between market power and price-response asymmetry. We provide direct evidence of tacit collusion by investigating sticky pricing behaviors and suggest that the tacit collusion is the main channel through which market power influences asymmetric pricing. Additionally, we examine the effect of station heterogeneity on asymmetric pricing to provide further evidence of tacit collusion even in relatively competitive environments.
Download or read book Three Essays on Retail Price Competition written by Taehwan Kim (Ph.D. in Economics) and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter examines price dispersion in retail gasoline and focuses on differentiation along the service dimension: full service versus self service. Consistent with more intensive search by self-service customers, I find that price dispersion always decreases with the number of nearby self-service stations, but does not decrease with the number of nearby full-service stations. When I segment the market by brand, I observe that the estimates are sensitive to how brands are separated into different types. These findings show that the market is more clearly segmented by service level than by brand type and also highlight the importance of product differentiation when modeling price dispersion. In the second chapter, I examine product positioning and pricing strategies of sellers in a market undergoing a significant restructuring using data from the introduction of self-service technology in the Korean gasoline market in the 2000s. I show that the decision of full-service sellers to exit or switch to self service is positively correlated with the intensity of competition they face. The pricing strategies of sellers differ by product position: self-service sellers compete for price-sensitive consumers, whereas full-service sellers differentiate their product by offering a variety of bundled products and services, such as coffee, carwash or even a nail salon, to compete for less-price-sensitive consumers. Taken together, these patterns have led to an increase in the full-service premium during the market transition. In the third chapter, I study the effect of a government contract on price. Since 2013, Korean government officials have been required to refuel at contracted gasoline stations, at about 5% discounts relative to the posted price. The initial contract terminated in November 2015 and a new group of sellers took over the contract. In this paper, I use this natural experiment to examine the impact of the government contract on gasoline prices, using a difference-in-difference analysis and price data on all gasoline stations in Seoul. I find that, all else equal, posted prices of contracted gasoline stations are about 2% higher than those of non-contracted stations. This finding is consistent with the prediction of models of price discrimination that prices decrease when the elasticity of demand falls. The effect on prices is not uniform across all stations, however. The contract leads to larger increases in full-service stations' posted prices than in self-service stations' prices, and larger increases at stations with fewer nearby competitors. The contract also decreases prices of non-contracted stations very close to contracted stations.
Download or read book Empircal Essays on Demand Complementarity and Competition in Gas Retailing written by John Arthur Romley and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Essays on Market Response to Changes in Costs and Price Transparency written by Anna Olga Smolnik and published by Cuvillier Verlag. This book was released on 2017-01-25 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dissertation consists of three empirical studies and takes a closer look at price fluctuations using German gasoline prices as an example for a homogenous good. It analyzes consumers’ reaction to price fluctuations and respectively the pricing behavior of firms. The first paper, which was developed with co-authorship, explores consumers’ online price search effects on the pricing behavior of firms (gasoline price level and price dispersion). As regulators have recently implemented a mechanism for reporting all price changes to a central data base, the core assumption of this price reporting scheme is that the increase in price transparency will lead to a decline in the price level and a reduction in price dispersion. The second study addresses the question whether German gas stations adjust their retail prices asymmetrically in response to crude oil price changes, i.e., whether gas stations react quicker to crude oil price increases than to crude oil price decreases. The third study aims to analyze whether consumers react more strongly to gasoline price increases or to price decreases when considering buying a new vehicle.
Download or read book Essays on Consumer Purchase Behavior and Competitive Firm Strategies written by Andy Wei-Rong Chen and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two essays explore two topics in marketing - consumer purchase behavior and competitive firm strategies. The first essay examines consumer stockpiling behavior in the retail gasoline market and aims to shed light on what factors affect consumer stockpiling. Past research on consumer stockpiling behavior such as Hendel and Nevo (2006) finds evidence of inter-temporal substitution by consumers that implies stockpiling behavior. However, they do not observe actual inventory or consumption and have to rely on simplifying assumptions about these quantities. I collect a novel data set of gasoline purchase history of consumers with actual inventory and consumption to test several hypotheses that relate consumer stockpiling to price, duration between purchases, and consumption. First, I find that consumers holding more inventory are more price sensitive. Higher inventory increases the impact of price on purchase decisions and those with higher inventory can afford to do more price search before making a purchase. I also find that all else equal, consumers will reduce consumption following a purchase made during high prices; that consumers with lower inventory have a higher probability of purchasing; and that duration from previous purchase is shorter for purchases made during low prices and longer during high prices. The second essay examines competition in a dynamic setting between Wal-Mart and Target in the context of location choices and expansion strategies. Studying this topic sheds light on how an industry evolves and how the market structure is shaped by decisions such as when to enter and exit and where to locate new stores as well as the driving force behind different expansion strategies. One of the early papers by Bresnahan and Reiss (1991) study entry of retail and professional services into isolated markets in a one-shot game. In their model, firms are allowed to enter once and open one store. Collard-Wexler (2014) estimates a model of investment and entry in the ready-mix concrete industry. Again, each firm is assumed to own a single plant in the model. In my paper, I build a structural model in which firms can open multiple stores over a period of time. This setting is closer to reality as competition between firms lasts over many periods with firms making regular entry decisions and often opening multiple stores in the same market. I estimate how entry decisions are affected by competitor's presence and market characteristics and learn about the evolution of market structure and expansion strategies of the firms. The firms are forward-looking and engage in Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE) strategies. The results show that firm profits are affected asymmetrically by the competitor's presence. First, Wal-Mart is the dominant firm with higher profits regardless of Target's presence. On the other hand, Target's profits depend a lot on Wal-Mart's presence. It must have more stores than Wal-Mart (called store advantage) to profit. I also find asymmetry in the expansion strategies of the two firms. Wal-Mart tends to explore new and smaller markets by being the first and often the only firm to enter, while Target tends to focus on major markets with high population and GDP and strives to maintain store advantage over Wal-Mart by matching or outdoing Wal-Mart's decision to open new stores.
Download or read book The Nature of Competition in Gasoline Distribution at the Retail Level written by Ralph Cassady and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-09-23 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1951.
Download or read book The State of Competition in Gasoline Marketing written by James B. Delaney and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Algorithmic Pricing and Competition written by Stephanie Assad and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic theory provides ambiguous and conflicting predictions about the association between algorithmic pricing and competition. In this paper we provide the first empirical analysis of this relationship. We study Germany's retail gasoline market where algorithmic-pricing software became widely available by mid-2017, and for which we have access to comprehensive, high-frequency price data. Because adoption dates are unknown, we identify gas stations that adopt algorithmic-pricing software by testing for structural breaks in markers associated with algo-rithmic pricing. We find a large number of station-level structural breaks around the suspected time of large-scale adoption. Using this information we investigate the impact of adoption on outcomes linked to competition. Because station-level adoption is endogenous, we use brand headquarter-level adoption decisions as instruments. Our IV results show that adoption in-creases margins by 9%, but only in non-monopoly markets. Restricting attention to duopoly markets, we find that market-level margins do not change when only one of the two stations adopts, but increase by 28% in markets where both do. These results suggest that AI adoption has a significant effect on competition.
Download or read book Essays on Price Dynamics and Consumer Search written by Matthew Stephen Lewis and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dynamic Pricing in Retail Gasoline Markets written by Severin Borenstein and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper tests for price patterns in retail gasoline markets consistent with those predicted by models of implicit collusion among firms. Recent supergame models show that the highest supportable collusive price is a function of today's profit relative to expected future profit: collusive prices are higher when predictable changes in demand or cost lead firms to expect that collusive profits are increasing rather than declining. Ceteris paribus, collusive profits will be expected to increase when demand is expected to increase and/or costs are expected to decline. Using panel data on sales volume, and retail and wholesale prices in 59 cities over 72 months, we find results consistent with these predictions. Controlling for current demand and input price, the elasticity of current retail margins with respect to expected next-month demand is about 0.37. The elasticity of current margins with respect to next-month wholesale price is about -0.37. The results are inconsistent with inventory effects.
Download or read book Essays on Vertical Relationships Competition and Regulation in the Gasoline Industry written by Justine Shirin Hastings and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Anticompetitive Practices in the Retail Gasoline Market written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Antitrust, Monopolies, and Business Rights and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Perfect Competition Spatial Competition and Tax Incidence in the Retail Gasoline Market written by James Alm and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper we use monthly gasoline price data for all fifty U.S. states over the period 1984 to 1999 to examine the incidence of state gasoline excise taxes. Standard economic theory predicts full shifting of the excise tax to consumers when the supply of gasoline is perfectly elastic, and our empirical results are largely consistent with this prediction. In general, we find full shifting of gasoline taxes to the final consumer, with changes in gasoline taxes fully reflected in the tax-inclusive gasoline price almost instantly, a result consistent with a retail gasoline market in which firms are perfectly competitive and produce at constant cost. In addition, although we find that gasoline retail prices demonstrate asymmetric responses to changes in gasoline wholesale prices, we find only limited evidence of such behavior for retail prices with respect to gasoline excise taxes. Importantly, we also present a novel application of a spatial price discrimination model to examine tax incidence in markets that are not perfectly competitive. In this alternative framework, the incidence of excise taxes depends upon the competitiveness of retail gasoline markets, which depends in turn on spatial aspects of the market. Consistent with this alternative theoretical framework, our empirical estimates demonstrate that gasoline markets in urban states exhibit full shifting, but those in rural states demonstrate somewhat less than full shifting.
Download or read book Price Fluctuations and Competition in the Retail Gasoline Market written by Mark B. Schupack and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Retail Gas Prices written by United States and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Prices and Consumer Information written by Alex Maurizi and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Retail Policies and Competition in the Gasoline Industry written by Severin Borenstein and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
