Who Benefits from Information Disclosure? The Case of Retail Gasoline
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 11,
no. 2, May 2019
(pp. 277-305)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
How does online price disclosure affect competition when both consumers and firms can use the disclosed information? This paper addresses this question exploiting the sequential implementation of an online price-disclosure policy in the Chilean retail gasoline industry. The results show that disclosure increased margins by 9 percent on average, though the effects varied across the country depending on the intensity of local search behavior. Because margins increased the least, and even decreased, in high-search areas, where income is also higher, the results also show that price disclosure policies may have important distributional effects.Citation
Luco, Fernando. 2019. "Who Benefits from Information Disclosure? The Case of Retail Gasoline." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 11 (2): 277-305. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170110Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- L11 Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
- L71 Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Hydrocarbon Fuels
- L81 Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
- O13 Economic Development: Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products
- Q35 Hydrocarbon Resources
- Q41 Energy: Demand and Supply; Prices
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