Consumers complain that retail prices of petroleum products increase instantly whenever prices of crude oil increase but take a long time to fall after crude oil price decreases. This apparent discrepancy attracts significant attention in the applied literature, as it might imply a welfare...

Abstract This study employs an error-correction SETAR model to analyse the non-linearities in the behaviour of the mark-up on costs charged by the filling stations in the New York metropolitan area. While usual price transmission gained significant attention in the literature, the mark-up...

This paper studies consumer search and pricing behaviour in the British domestic electricity market following its opening to competition in 1999. We develop a sequential search model in which an incumbent and an entrant group compete for consumers who nd it costly to obtain information on prices...

This paper studies consumer search and pricing behaviour in the British domestic electricity market following its opening to competition in 1999. We develop a sequential search model in which an incumbent and an entrant group compete for consumers who find it costly to obtain information on...

This work investigates the effect of upstream and downstream mar- ket concentration on retailers’ price-cost margins using bimonthly data over the period 1989–1992 disaggregated by retailer type and product. In addition to horizontal concentration, differentiation, and cost factors, the...

One objective of introducing incentive regulation to the newly privatized UK utilities over the past 20 years was to encourage efficient pricing structures. Caps have been imposed on average price levels, giving firms freedom to rebalance amongst prices within the basket. We test how firms have...

This paper investigates the evolution of electricity prices for domestic customers in the UK following the introduction of competition. The empirical analysis is based on a panel data set containing detailed information about electricity supply prices over the period 1999 to 2006. The analysis...