Center for Economic Analysis

Summertime is fast approaching and Michigan holiday travelers are planning their summer outings. This summer may see an increase in vehicular traffic as consumers revel in mystifyingly low gasoline prices. Michigan motorist have become accustomed to the price of regular gasoline hovering around $3.50 per gallon over the past three years. But something remarkable happened in the late summer of 2014 when gasoline prices started to drop, and they kept dropping to lows not seen since early 2009. Economists now expect these suppressed prices to remain through 2015. But sceptics exist, and everybody knows that gas prices jump in the summer time when motorist hit the highways. New research from the Center for Economic Analysis suggests that this perception is a gaffe, and that gasoline prices do not tend to increase in the summertime.