The Asymmetry of Price in the Petroleum Products Market of Ukraine

Abstract

Aims: The aim of this work is to develop of pricing mechanism's model   in the retail market during price jumps in the wholesale market of petroleum products. Study Design: Mention the design of the study here. Place and Duration of Study: Faculty of Management and Marketing National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, between March 2015 and February 2016. Methodology: One of the main factors that determine the behaviour of retail prices on commodity markets is the dynamics of wholesale prices. However, retail prices in most cases respond differently to the increase and decrease in wholesale prices on markets with homogeneous products and the oligopolistic price competition, in particular on the petroleum products market. In this work the main hypotheses regarding the nature of asymmetric behaviour of retail prices on petroleum products market were checked on the basis of heuristic mechanisms about the behaviour of the market and the developed multi-agent models. Results: On the basis of the following assumptions about the nature of asymmetry of prices a multi-agent model for retail petroleum products market was developed that describes the behaviour of players both in terms of the tacit collusion and the behaviour of the market in terms of consumer search. For agent modelling and verification of the adequacy special software was developed. The verification of adequacy of models and parametric identification were made based on real prices of fuel. Conclusion: Comparative analysis of behaviour models showed that both hypotheses about the nature of asymmetry of price could occur on the petroleum products market. The model shows certain qualitative and quantitative differences asymmetry in retail prices of petroleum products, depending on the reasons that led to the asymmetry prices.