When does mandatory price disclosure lower prices? Evidence from the German fuel market

Felix Montag, Alina Sagimuldina and Christoph Winter

No 344, Working Papers from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State

Abstract: The widespread availability of digital technologies has made mandatory price disclosure policies (MPD) a convenient tool for policymakers to increase price transparency and foster competition. The literature has shown that these can increase or decrease prices. We shed light on the circumstances under which MPD lowers prices. We study the introduction of MPD in the German retail fuel market by combining a stylized theoretical model with detailed data on prices, seller characteristics and consumer information. We find that low levels of prior consumer information, a high number of sellers, and complementary information campaigns foster the procompetitive effects of MPD.

Keywords: Mandatory price disclosure; consumer information; retail fuel market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 L41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-eec, nep-ene, nep-ind, nep-pay and nep-reg
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:300263

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