Edgeworth Price Cycles, Cost-Based Pricing, and Sticky Pricing in Retail Gasoline Markets
研究加拿大零售汽油市场的动态定价行为，发现成本基础定价、粘性定价和类似埃奇沃思周期的价格模式，并用马尔可夫转换回归分析其普遍性和结构特征。
This paper examines dynamic pricing behavior in Canadian retail gasoline markets. I find three distinct pricing patterns: cost-based pricing, sticky pricing, and sharp asymmetric retail price cycles that resemble the Edgeworth cycles of Maskin and Tirole (1988). I use a Markov-switching regression to estimate the prevalence of the regimes and the structural characteristics of the cycles themselves. I find cycles are more prevalent when there are more small firms and are accelerated and amplified with very many small firms. In markets with few small firms, sticky pricing dominates. The findings are consistent with the theory of Edgeworth cycles. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.