New evidence on asymmetric gasoline price responses

In a 1997 paper, Borenstein, Cameron, and Gilbert (BCG) claim that gasoline prices rise quickly following an increase in the price of crude oil, but fall slowly following a decrease. This note estimates an error-correction model with daily spot gasoline and crude-oil price data over the period 1985-1998 and finds no evidence of asymmetry in wholesale gasoline prices. The sources of the difference in results are twofold. First, we use the standard Engle-Granger two-step estimation procedure, whereas BCG used a nonstandard estimation methodology. Second, even using BCG's nonstandard specification, the use of daily rather than weekly data yields little evidence of price asymmetry.