The FTC's Report on Gasoline Price Manipulation and Post-Katrina Gasoline Price Increases: Some Comments
19 October 2006
By Dr. Elizabeth Bailey
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has been under increasing pressure from consumers and Congress to investigate the causes for rising gasoline prices in the US, has released numerous reports over the past few years addressing the results of its various investigations. On 22 May 2006, the FTC released its most recent report, Investigation of Gasoline Price Manipulation and Post-Katrina Gasoline Price Increases, which presents the FTC's findings on a Congress-mandated investigation addressing two issues: whether or not US gasoline refiners and distributors have attempted to manipulate gas prices in general, and whether or not refiners and distributors have attempted to manipulate gas prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
In this article from Antitrust Source, NERA Vice President Dr. Elizabeth Bailey summarizes the report's findings and offers insight on what the findings tell us about market power in the petroleum industry. Dr. Bailey notes that while the report leaves some questions unanswered, it nevertheless is likely to serve as a useful resource to students of the petroleum industry, providing a well thought-out discussion of the economic issues that arise in an attempt to pin down the behavior that constitutes price gouging.
This article, from the October 2006 issue of Antitrust Source, has been reproduced with permission from the American Bar Association. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or downloaded or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
