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Rockets and feathers: Asymmetric pricing and consumer search - Evidence from electricity retailing

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  • Heim, Sven
Abstract
In many markets prices react stronger to rising than to falling costs. This asymmetric cost pass-through is still not fully understood, but recent theories suggest that asymmetric adjustments of consumers’ search efforts to rising and to falling prices may help to explain this. I use novel panel data to investigate the interaction of consumer search intensity, pricing and cost pass-through in the German residential electricity markets. I find that consumers search slightly more when prices rise but drastically decrease search efforts when they fall. Moreover, I find direct evidence that cost pass-through heavily depends on consumers’ search efforts.

Suggested Citation

  • Heim, Sven, 2019. "Rockets and feathers: Asymmetric pricing and consumer search - Evidence from electricity retailing," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-070, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:16070
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew, 2018. "The effect of default rates on retail competition and pricing decisions of competitive retailers: The case of Alberta," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 298-311.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer Search; Cost Pass-through; Rockets and Feathers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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