This paper analyses determinants of pass-through for Germany’s 2022 temporary fuel discount at its implementation and subsequent termination. Based on a unique dataset of fuel station characteristics and prices, we employ a two-stage Regression Discontinuity in Time (RDiT) methodology to estimate spatial pass-through variation. Our findings indicate that horizontal and vertical market structures exert an asymmetric influence on tax pass-through. Competitive pressure enhances price responsiveness to tax reductions, whereas we find the opposite pattern for the tax increase. Furthermore, independence from upstream markets is associated with lower tax pass-through, indicating the presence of double marginalization.
Keywords: gasoline prices, fuel taxation, spatial competition, tax pass-through, regression discontinuity in time
DOI:
https://dx.doi.org/10.18723/diw_ddc:2025-116
https://doi.org/10.25652/diw_data_S0034.1
This paper is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/