Self-Service Bans and Gasoline Prices: The Effect of Allowing Consumers to Pump Their Own Gas
中文摘要
世界上大多数人口生活在禁止自助销售汽油的国家。由于缺乏政策变动,这项规定的因果效应在这些国家难以评估,但俄勒冈州近期的一项准实验使我们得以分析该禁令的影响。1992年至2017年间,俄勒冈州是美国两个禁止加油站自助服务的州之一。2018年初,俄勒冈州调整了相关规定,允许人口低于4万的县在加油站实行自助服务。笔者考察了这项自助服务禁令的废除及其对汽油价格的影响。笔者采用双重差分设计,利用汽油价格的高频数据,发现废除自助服务禁令使俄勒冈州受影响县的汽油价格每加仑下降4.4美分。对于一个拥有三名持照驾驶员的家庭而言,这一效应相当于每年预期节省约90美元。
Abstract
Most of the world's population lives in countries that ban the self‐service sale of gasoline. Causal effects of this regulation can hardly be assessed in these countries due to a lack of policy changes, but a recent quasi‐experiment in the state of Oregon allows us to analyze the impact of the ban. From 1992 to 2017, the state of Oregon was one of two U.S. states that banned self‐service at gasoline stations. Oregon adjusted regulations at the start of 2018 to allow self‐service at gasoline stations in counties with populations below 40,000 individuals. I examine the repeal of this self‐service ban and its effects on gasoline prices. I apply a difference‐in‐differences design using high frequency data of gasoline prices and find that repealing the self‐service ban reduced gasoline prices by 4.4 cents per gallon in affected Oregon counties. This effect represents approximately $90 in expected annual savings for a household with three licensed drivers.