Journal article
Consumer Search in Retail Gasoline Markets
DP Byrne, N de Roos
Journal of Industrial Economics | Published : 2017
DOI: 10.1111/joie.12119
Abstract
This paper develops direct tests for search behavior in retail gasoline markets. We exploit a unique market-level dataset that allows us to directly measure search intensity with daily web traffic data from a gasoline price reporting website and perfectly measure daily changes in price levels and dispersion. Our simple yet powerful tests provide strong evidence of both cross-sectional and intertemporal price search.
Grants
Funding Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Fuelwatch team at the Western Australian Government for their cooperation in this project and the Melbourne School of Government for funding. The Editor, two anonymous referees and seminar participants at The University of Melbourne have provided various helpful comments. Daniel Tiong provided excellent research assistance. The paper was previously circulated under the title 'Search and Stockpiling in Retail Gasoline Markets.' The views in this article represent solely those of the authors. All errors and omissions are our own.