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Retail fuel price adjustment in Germany: A threshold cointegration approach

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  • Asane-Otoo, Emmanuel
  • Schneider, Jan

Abstract

Consumers in Germany often complain that retail fuel prices usually adjust quickly to crude oil price increases than decreases and characterize this pricing pattern as market power exploitation. In this paper, we use both weekly national and daily city-specific (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne) data to investigate the extent to which retail fuel prices in Germany adjust to changes in the international crude oil price. At the national level with weekly prices, we find positive asymmetries for both gasoline and diesel within the period 2003–2007, reflecting that retail prices react more swiftly to crude oil price increases than decreases. In contrast, for 2009–2013, we observe symmetric adjustment and negative asymmetry for retail diesel and gasoline prices, respectively. The city level analysis supports our findings in the latter time period. Thus, regulatory measures aimed at the retail fuel market over recent years seem to have been effective, and, contrary to consumers' perception, we find no evidence for excessive market power or collusion.

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  • Asane-Otoo, Emmanuel & Schneider, Jan, 2015. "Retail fuel price adjustment in Germany: A threshold cointegration approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-10.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:78:y:2015:i:c:p:1-10
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.12.013
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    Cited by:

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    2. Fekadu Gelaw & Stijn Speelman & Guido Huylenbroeck, 2017. "Impacts of Institutional Intervention on Price Transmissions: The Case of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 88-106, November.
    3. Z. Bragoudakis & D. Sideris, 2021. "Asymmetric price adjustment and the effects of structural reforms and low demand in the gasoline market: the case of Greece," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 504-522, January.
    4. Emmanuel Asane-Otoo & C. Dannemann, 2021. "Station heterogeneity and asymmetric gasoline price responses," Working Papers V-436-21, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2021.
    5. Alberto Bagnai & Christian Alexander Mongeau Ospina, 2016. "Price asymmetries in the European gasoline market," a/ Working Papers Series 1602, Italian Association for the Study of Economic Asymmetries, Rome (Italy).
    6. Bragoudakis, Zacharias & Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2020. "Oil and pump prices: Testing their asymmetric relationship in a robust way," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. Balaguer, Jacint & Ripollés, Jordi, 2016. "Asymmetric fuel price responses under heterogeneity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 281-290.
    8. Zacharias Bragoudakis & Dimitrios Sideris, 2019. "Asymmetric price adjustment and the effects of structural reforms in a low income environment: the case of the gasoline market in Greece," Working Papers 274, Bank of Greece.
    9. Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Siekmann, Manuel, 2016. "Selling gasoline as a by-product: The impact of market structure on local prices," DICE Discussion Papers 240, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    10. Fasoula, Evanthia & Schweikert, Karsten, 2018. "Price regulations and price adjustment dynamics: Evidence from the Austrian retail fuel market," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 08-2018, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    11. Malkidis, Stavros & Fountas, Stilianos, 2020. "Liquid fuel price adjustment in Greece: A two-stage, threshold cointegration approach," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).
    12. María Torrado & Álvaro Escribano, 2020. "European gasoline markets: price transmission asymmetries in mean and variance," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(42), pages 4621-4638, September.
    13. Kourtzidis, Stavros A. & Tzeremes, Panayiotis & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2018. "Re-evaluating the energy consumption-economic growth nexus for the United States: An asymmetric threshold cointegration analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 537-545.

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