20: Petrol Prices. Are you being taken for a ride?

David Byrne Professor of Economics at Melbourne University is Australia’s leading expert in retail petrol pricing. With Burgernomics host, Ross MacDowell they discuss collusion, cartels and the associated costs to the Australian motorist. Professor Byrne has conducted empirical studies proving exactly what most people believe, there is something ‘funny’ going on with the price of the petrol we buy at the bowser. Australia's petrol market, a freely competitive market place benefiting the consumer? Probably not.Dive Deeper What Professor Byrne recommends.Petrol Pricing Apps That Will Save You MoneyMotor Mouth. https://motormouth.com.au/Gas Buddy. https://www.gasbuddy.com/app Fuel Map. http://fuelmap.com.au/ Fuel Watch WA. https://www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/Start Up Search Costs by Prof David Byrne and Prof Nicolas de RoosAmerican Economic Journal: Microeconomics,https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3100395Individuals pay the same cost to obtain price information each time they search. This paper provides evidence on a new form of search costs: startup costs. Exploiting a natural experiment in retail gasoline, we document how a temporary, large exogenous shock to consumers' search incentives leads to a substantial, permanent increase in price search. A standard search model fails to explain such history-dependence in search, while it follows directly from a model with a one-time up-front cost to start searching.Learning To Co Ordinate: A Study In Retail Gasoline. By Prof. David Byrne and Prof Nicholas De Rooshttps://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/scholarlywork/953653-learning-to-coordinate--a-study-in-retail-gasolineACCC Vs Informed Sourceshttps://www.australiancompetitionlaw.org/cases/current/2014-vid450-informed.html