Intraweek Demand Variability and the Dynamics of Retail Gasoline Prices

Little attention has been devoted to testing the conventional wisdom regarding retailing price adjustments during the weekends. Previous researchers were unable to find a weekend effect due to data limitations. In particular,... [ view full abstract ]

Little attention has been devoted to testing the conventional wisdom regarding retailing price adjustments during the weekends. Previous researchers were unable to find a weekend effect due to data limitations. In particular, previous investigations only used few gas stations or where exposed to specific markets with unique coordinated behavior. In this paper, we use a unique dataset of consumer reported gas prices that are publicly and freely available on GasBuddy.com to show that the retail gasoline prices are higher during the weekends as supported by anecdotal evidence. After controlling for the weather forecast, oil prices, retailer brand and geographic location, we find that retail gasoline prices are higher on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday than the rest of the week. These findings are suggestive of some price fixing, but further research is needed to address this issue.