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Michael Bauchmüller, Berlin
Johannes Schwanitz rarely passes a gas station with a good feeling. 1.98 euros for a liter of Super, 2.01 or 2.05 – something is wrong, the economist from the Münster University of Applied Sciences suspects. He has been firmly convinced of this for years, and to prove it he presents diagrams on which a straight curve suddenly turns into squiggles like an airplane in a waiting pattern. “The free market doesn’t work the way it should,” says the professor from Münster. At its peak, the net price was 23 cents higher than what efficient competition would produce. Even 27 cents with VAT. And even now, that would still be around twelve cents. 1.98 euros would become 1.86 – in Schwanitz’s theory.