Michael Giberson It looks like we may get through the 2009 hurricane season without any new evidence generated of the harm due to anti-price gouging legislation. The lack of a lot of hurricane damage is good, obviously (but I foresee that it may leave me bereft of new material for blogging on price gouging). Wikipedia …
Michael Giberson Last year, as crude oil and gasoline prices went on their wild ride, gasoline prices in Alaska took a somewhat different path than prices in the lower 48 states. For years, average prices in Alaska were about the same as the U.S. average price. Higher costs of delivery in Alaska were mostly offset …
Michael Giberson At least some retail gasoline consumers in New York expected that the zone pricing ban implemented last year would tend to equalize retail gasoline prices in an area. Rochester TV station WHEC discovers that a year after the law was signed by the governor, and about 10 months after the zone pricing law …
New York’s Zone Pricing Ban Not Eliminating Retail Gasoline Price Differences Read More »
Michael Giberson From Columbia, South Carolina’s The State newspaper, more evidence of the predictable effects of anti-price gouging laws: A day after drivers began a panic-buying run on gas, S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster invoked the state’s price-gouging law with fines up to $1,000 per offense and up to 30 days in jail. Hotlines were …
Retail Gasoline Stations Shutting Down to Avoid Price Gouging Complaints Read More »
Michael Giberson In June, the South Carolina’s Office of the Attorney General issued a report on post-Hurricane Ike price gouging. The brief report is worth a look if you have an interest in price gouging laws. Over 4,300 price gouging complaints were received by the SC attorney general’s office in the post-Hurricane Ike period. Lots …
Gasoline Price Gouging After Hurricane Ike in South Carolina Read More »
Michael Giberson A study by the Government Accountability Office has concluded that gasoline refinery outages tend to have small effects on prices. While large scale weather events like Hurricane Katrina and Rita did result in large prices increases, such events are rare, the study said. In other findings: Typical unplanned refinery outages tended to increase …
Refinery Outages Generally Have Small Effects on Gasoline Prices, Gao Says Read More »
Michael Giberson At Freakonomics, a Q&A with Christopher Steiner, author of $20 a Gallon. Haven’t read the book, but my present question has only to deal with an issue raised in the Freakonomics Q&A: the energy economics of school buses. Freakonomics asks how higher fuel prices would affect the way children get to school. Steiner …
Do School Buses Use More Energy Than the Likely Alternatives? Read More »
Michael Giberson An article from the San Bernardino, CA, The Sun offers a glimpse at the retail gasoline world from the retailers point of view: checking up on the competition twice a day, worried about being a penny or two too high in price, the pluses and minuses of accepting credit cards, negotiating with his …
Retailing Gasoline: At Least Twice a Day Dan Checks Up on His Competition Read More »
Michael Giberson Apparently you just have to know who to ask. Yesterday, the FTC sent me a copy of the FTC letter to Representative Brian Higgins describing the agency’s investigation of Western New York gasoline prices last fall. (For background see this earlier post and here.) Be aware that here begins a very long post …
Michael Giberson New York banned “zone pricing” of gasoline as of last November. In the news: (Henrietta, N.Y.) – Nine months after a state law banning zone pricing for gas went into effect, drivers can still find about a 20 cent per gallon disparity in price depending on where they buy it. For example, gas …
Nine Months After the Zone Pricing Ban in New York… Read More »
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