Price Effect of Domestic Oil Tax under Vertically-related Markets Structure

摘要

Domestic oil tax influences not only consumer price, but also oil company’s bid-ask spread and international oil price by vertically-related markets. We find that price effects of domestic oil tax differ significantly under different market structures. Price transmission elasticity of domestic oil tax is negative when competition between oil companies is weak, which means that world oil price drops and asking price of oil companies rises when domestic oil tax increases. On the contrary, price transmission elasticity of domestic oil tax is positive when competition between oil companies is strong. The empirical study, based on U.S., EU and Japan data, supports the above theoretical conclusions. This paper also explains the deviation between the actual and optimal oil tax rates in major oil-importing countries. Because of the opposition of energy interest group and consumers’ sensitivity to oil price, the actual oil tax rate is far below its optimal value in U.S., while EU and Japan impose higher oil tax because of the support of oil companies and environmentalists. The conclusions of this paper provide some policy implications for the reform of China’s oil-price deregulation and fuel tax.