The Reasons for High Fuel Prices in Florida

Abstract
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The purpose of this synopsis is to define or breakdown the article published by the University of Florida, "Higher gas prices cause dip in Florida consumer confidence." The synopsis is based on research done by the University of Florida's Bureau of Research and Development. In this research paper an explanation of how the research was conducted and how the information was used to come up with tangible data will be included.

The Problems Under Investigation

According to the article," Increasingly, consumer confidence seems to be driven by the price of gasoline," said Chris McCarty, director of the survey research center at UF's Bureau of Economic and Business Research. "The rise in confidence last month appears to have been a lagged reaction to lower gas prices in February. But we have more than made up for those drops in the past two months, and gas prices are headed upward as the summer traveling season approaches." (News.UFL.Edu 2006) As we can see from this article, Floridian's confidence has fallen from being plagued by the high cost of gasoline in the United States. The article also goes to explain why crude oil prices have risen to high amounts," Recent gas price increases have been spurred by higher costs of crude oil internationally in response to concerns over some oil-producing countries, such as Iran and Nigeria, as well as by domestic oil refineries adapting changes in the regulations covering the formula for gasoline, McCarty said. Looking ahead, domestic demand will drive changes in the price of gasoline, as is the case during the summer months, he said."

The Research Department of the University of Florida

The University of Florida's Bureau of Research and Development did the research conducted in these articles. According to their website, "Founded in 1929, the Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) is an applied research center in the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida. Its primary mission is to: 1) Collect economic and demographic data for Florida and its local areas; 2) Conduct economic, demographic, and public policy research on topics of particular importance to the state of Florida; and 3) Distribute data and research findings throughout the state and the nation." (bebr.ufl.edu 2006 ) From their website we can get an idea how the information is gathered for each of their individual research projects.

The Methods Used to Collect Data for Research

The fact or concept is high prices of fuel do affect all of us. The construct is easily seen developing by the hypothetical question, why is consumer confidence in Florida dropping? How can we prove these facts? The problems in the article were addressed by gathering variables in regards to consumer confidence with surveys. The information could be easily visualized by the drop in consumer confidence numbers which were given, "Rising gas prices were the likely cause of a two-point dip in consumer confidence in April to 89, following a four-point hike in March, University of Florida economists report." We already know the price of gasoline is high, so the problem statement or hypothesis would be, again why are prices of fuel high in the United States, and why are consumers so down by this fact? The information gathered for the research is done through surveys random surveys according to the article, ""The research center conducts the Florida Consumer Attitude survey monthly. Respondents are 18 or older and live in households telephoned randomly. The preliminary index for April was conducted from 408 responses. The error rate is plus or minus 5 percent." I would classify this as longitudinal research through surveys. The research was done over a period of time to see how consumers reacted to the high cost of gasoline. According to the article the possible solutions to the problem of consumer confidence would be more refineries in the United States by what I have gathered from the information in the business research paper. According to the article the benchmark used to set the standards of the research are, "The index is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for the year. The valley of the index is in comparing changes over time rather than looking at an isolated month." According to the article we can see why monitoring the level of consumer confidence is so important, "Consumer confidence is designed to help predict buying patterns by measuring the mood of consumers toward purchasing. Although other economic indicators also predict buying patterns, consumer confidence tends to be available sooner."
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References
http://news.ufl.edu/2006/04/25/cc0406/
http://www.bebr.ufl.edu/contact/About.shtml