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In the last decade, many European countries have seen a sharp increase in the number of automated fueling stations. We study the effect of this process innovation on prices at stations that are automated and their competitors using a difference-in-differences matching strategy. Our estimates show that prices at automated stations drop by 1.7 to 3.2% immediately after conversion and stabilize at this lower level. Unlike previous studies, our estimates do not reveal a difference in impact between early and later adopters of automation. Indicative of competitive spillovers, prices at stations within 2 km of an automated station decrease on average with a precisely estimated 0.2%. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Applying detailed consecutive daily micro data at the gasoline station level from Sweden we estimate a structural model to uncover the degree of competition in the gasoline retail market. We find that retailers do exercise market power, but despite the high upstream concentration, the market power is very limited on the downstream level. The degree of market power varies with both the distance to the nearest station and the local density of gasoline stations. A higher level of service tends to raise a seller’s market power; self-service stations have close to no market power. Contractual form and brand identity also seem to matter. We find a clear result: local station characteristics significantly affect the degree of market power. Our results indicate that local differences in station characteristics can more than offset the average market power found for the whole market.

Edgeworth cycles represent the leading concept to explain observed pricing patterns on retail gasoline markets and have been subject to numerous empirical investigations on an interday level. In this paper, I present unique evidence of the presence, causes, and price effects of intraday Edgeworth-type cycles for an entire OECD country, using high-frequency price data from German gasoline stations. I find vast evidence of intraday cycles across municipalities in Germany. Cycle asymmetry and intensity is stronger in more concentrated markets and decreases with a higher share of non-major brands. My analysis suggests that intraday cycles are a sign of competition with a price decreasing effect during evening hours, where consumers conscious of their purchase timing can benefit most.

We analyze collusion in two comparable market structures. In the first market structure, only one firm is vertically integrated; there is one independent firm in the upstream industry and another independent firm in the downstream industry. In the second market structure, there are only two vertically integrated firms that can trade among themselves in the intermediate good market. The second market structure mimics markets like the California gasoline market where firms are vertically integrated through refinery and retail markets. We rank these two market structures in terms of ease of collusion and show that while under a reasonable collusive sharing rule collusion is not possible in the market with one vertically integrated firm, collusion is possible in the market structure with two vertically integrated firms. We conclude that vertical multimarket (multilevel) contact facilitates collusion and if vertical mergers are suspected to lead to subsequent vertical mergers in an industry, then they should receive higher antitrust scrutiny relative to single isolated vertical mergers.

We use a novel data set with exact price quotes from virtually all German gasoline stations to empirically investigate how a temporary variance in local market structure - induced by restricted opening hours of specific players - affects price competition. We focus on stations selling gasoline as a by-product and find that, during their exogenously determined hours of opening, they have a significant negative price effect on nearby major-brand competitors. Applying a difference-in-difference framework with hourly average prices, our findings explicitly account for counterfactual market scenarios.

This paper studies asymmetric price responses of individual firms, via daily retail prices of almost all gasoline stations in the Netherlands and suggested prices of the five largest oil companies over more than two years. I find that 38% of the stations respond asymmetrically to changes in the spot market price. Hence, asymmetric pricing is not a feature of the market as a whole, but of individual firms. For asymmetrically pricing stations, the asymmetry is substantial directly after a change but disappears after one or two days. I study station-specific characteristics and conclude that asymmetric pricing seems to be a phenomenon that is randomly distributed across stations. I also find that none of the five largest oil companies adjust their suggested prices asymmetrically.

This article analyzes the role of suggested prices in the Dutch retail market for gasoline. Suggested prices are announced by large oil companies with the suggestion that retailers follow them. There are at least two competing rationales for the existence of suggested prices: they may either help retailers translate changes in international gasoline spot market prices into retail prices, or they may coordinate retail prices. We show that there is, next to the international spot market prices, additional information in suggested prices that explains retail prices. Therefore, we conclude that suggested prices help to coordinate retail prices.