• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.493-517
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• 2012

This paper analyzes a price discovery process for gasoline among branded and independent stations in Korea using a vector error correction model (VECM) and directed acyclic graphs (DAG). Two data sets for daily prices of medium level gasoline running from April 15, 2008 to May 31, 2009 and from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011 are used for empirical analysis. Empirical results show that S-OIL has an exogeneity and played a important role in the flow of price information in the market in the first period. In the second period, SK energy played a key role in price discovery process in the market. The price of NH-OIL stations do not cause the price of any other stations, which implies that the entrance of new branded stations with lower gasoline price to market has no influence on gasoline prices of retail markets.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.755-775
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• 2022

This study empirically analyzes that the asymmetry of domestic gasoline price adjustment to the crude oil price changes can vary depending on the level of gasoline price using quantile autoregressive distributed lag model. The data used are the weekly average Dubai price, domestic gasoline price at refiners and gas stations from the first week of May 2008 to the second week of October 2022. The study estimates three price transmission channels: changes in gas station gasoline prices in response to changes in Dubai oil prices, changes in refiners gasoline prices in response to changes in Dubai oil prices, and changes in gas station prices relative to refiners gasoline prices. As a result, the price adjustment of refiner's gasoline price with respect to Dubai oil price appears asymmetrically across all quantiles of gasoline price, whereas the adjustment of gas station prices for Dubai oil price and refiner's gasoline price tend to be more asymmetric as the quantile of gasoline price increases. Such a result is presumed to be due to changes in the inventory cost of gas stations. When the burden of inventory cost is high, gas stations have an incentive to more actively pass the increased buying price on their selling price.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.613-641
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• 2013

This paper uses the error correction model to analyse dynamic gasoline price adjustments of the four refiners. Unlike the existing studies, this model allows a refiner's asymmetric adjustment to changes in the other refiners' prices as well as in its own price and costs. With the estimation results, we can obtain the following findings. First, there are the asymmetric price adjustments to changes in exchange rate and international gasoline price, but showing opposing directions. Second, for most of the refiners, the prices respond immediately to the lagged deviation from the long run equilibrium price, but asymmetrically respond for a few refiners. Third, there are some refiners that adjust their price to the other refiners' price deviation from the long run equilibrium. For some refiners, there are competitive price adjustments to the others' price deviations. These findings imply that a refiner faces inelastic demand, intends to maintain implicitly a relative level of its own price to others, and tends to respond competitively to the others' price deviation from the equilibrium.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.833-854
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• 2007

Output prices tend to respond faster to input price increases than to decreases. The 'rockets and feathers' hypothesis of asymmetric price behavior in petroleum market is tested by a full adjustment error correction model. Using monthly data for the period January 1977 to June 2006, evidence is found that there is a significant degree of asymmetry in the adjustment of wholesale prices to increases and to decreases in crude oil price. A similar hypothesis in regard to the exchange rate is also rejected by the data. Using weekly data over the period examined, evidence of asymmetry for gasoline, diesel and heating oil is also found in the transmission of price changes from wholesale to retail: retail prices increase more quickly in response to the wholesale price increases than to wholesale price decreases.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.69-92
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• 2012

This paper analyzed price asymmetry of domestic petroleum products by distribution stage. Analyzing the asymmetry by distribution stage, we can investigate the gap between analysis results and consumers' perception. For the first stage, we analyzed asymmetries between retail prices including tax and the spot prices of crude oil. The results show that retail price increases more quickly in response to the crude oil prices rise than to the crude oil prices fall as consumers' perception. For the second stage, we analyzed asymmetry of international petroleum product prices in Korean Won with the change in the crude oil spot prices. The results show that international petroleum product prices increase higher in response to the crude oil prices increase than to the crude oil prices decrease. For the final stage, we examined the asymmetry of wholesale price and retail price with the change in the international petroleum product prices in Korean Won. The results show that wholesale prices increase more quickly in response to the crude oil prices rise than to the international petroleum product prices fall. The retail prices, however, decrease more quickly in response to the crude oil prices fall than to the international petroleum product prices rise.