Title
Media, Political Pressure, and the Firm: The Case of Oil Pricing during the Late 1970s
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-1990
Department
International Business & Management
Language
English
Publication Title
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Abstract
This paper empirically examines whether major domestic oil companies held down product prices relative to their less visible counterparts during the 1979 oil crisis. We compare company prices on unregulated fuel oil with a measure of political pressure—the level of television coverage of the energy crisis. We find that media coverage influenced home heating oil price ratios, but did not influence residual fuel oil price ratios for the same companies. We argue that this differential pricing pattern is rational in a politically sensitive period.
DOI
10.2307/2937821
Recommended Citation
Erfle, Stephen, and Henry McMillan. " Media, Political Pressure, and the Firm: The Case of Oil Pricing during the Late 1970s." Quarterly Journal of Economics 105, no. 1 (1990): 115-34.
Comments
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