Market collusion and regime analysis in the US gasoline market

This article is concerned with disequilibrium regime switching model to capture different regimes in the US gasoline markets. The purpose is to illustrate potential regimes in gasoline market. Following a suggestion in Hunter and Tabaghdehi (Cointegration and US regional gasoline prices: testing market efficiency from the stationarity of price proportions. Brunel University Working Paper, 13-03, 2013a), gasoline markets may not be efficient either across regions or within local markets. The Markov model may also be used as a benchmark to make comparison with other methods. The finding specifies that deviations from long-run equilibrium have an effect on gasoline price dynamics and captures two different regimes of supply and demand in this market.