By means of a meta-analysis, this article sets out to estimate average values for the income and price elasticities of gasoline demand and to analyse the reasons for the variations in the elasticities reported by the literature. The findings show that there is publication bias, that the volatility of elasticity estimates is not due to sampling errors alone, and that there are systematic factors explaining these differences. The income and price elasticities of gasoline demand differ between the short and long run and by region, and the estimation can appropriately include the vehicle fleet and…
El objetivo de este artículo es estimar, mediante un meta-análisis, el valor promedio de
las elasticidades ingreso y precio de la demanda de gasolinas y analizar las causas de
la variación en las elasticidades reportadas en la literatura. Los resultados muestran que
existe un sesgo de publicación, que la volatilidad de las estimaciones de las elasticidades
no se debe exclusivamente a errores de muestreo y que existen factores sistemáticos que
explican estas diferencias. Las elasticidades ingreso y precio de la demanda de gasolinas
son distintas en el corto y largo plazo, por regiones, y son su…
It has been established for a long time that there is significant dispersion in prices charged for seemingly homogeneous goods. This may happen in competitive markets because the world is not frictionless, and certainly in other markets where price discrimination is carried out by firms with oligopolistic power. This paper is the first survey of the economic literature on price dispersion that addresses the following three key issues: i) its characteristics as a result of optimizing search behavior; ii) its relevance as a reflection of price discrimination and its consequences for social welfa…