Monday, July 24, 2006

Gas Prices and Demand Curves

In the current issue of Business Week, there is an article ("Can't Stop Guzzling," pp. 26-29) that discusses how little our demand for gas appears to have been affected by the recent high prices. It's an interesting article, and an interesting issue: determining a demand curve for a product. Apparently this one is pretty inelastic -- but for prices up to how much per gallon?

Relevance to actuarial science: underlying auto insurance exposure should be some function of, among other things, amount driven, and how we drive. Are these being affected by changing gas prices?

- Rick

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