IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14450.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Do Gasoline Prices Affect Fleet Fuel Economy?

Author

Listed:
  • Shanjun Li
  • Roger von Haefen
  • Christopher Timmins

Abstract

Exploiting a rich data set of passenger vehicle registrations in twenty U.S. metropolitan statistical areas from 1997 to 2005, we examine the effects of gasoline prices on the automotive fleet's composition. We find that high gasoline prices affect fleet fuel economy through two channels: (1) shifting new auto purchases towards more fuel-efficient vehicles, and (2) speeding the scrappage of older, less fuel-efficient used vehicles. Policy simulations based on our econometric estimates suggest that a 10% increase in gasoline prices from 2005 levels will generate a 0.22% increase in fleet fuel economy in the short run and a 2.04% increase in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Shanjun Li & Roger von Haefen & Christopher Timmins, 2008. "How Do Gasoline Prices Affect Fleet Fuel Economy?," NBER Working Papers 14450, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14450
    Note: EEE PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14450.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Jennifer & Hastings, Justine & Mansur, Erin T. & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2008. "Reformulating competition Gasoline content regulation and wholesale gasoline prices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 1-19, January.
    2. Kenneth A. Small & Kurt Van Dender, 2007. "Fuel Efficiency and Motor Vehicle Travel: The Declining Rebound Effect," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 25-52.
    3. Jean Agras & Duane Chapman, 1999. "The Kyoto Protocol, Cafe Standards, And Gasoline Taxes," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 17(3), pages 296-308, July.
    4. Dahl, Carol A, 1979. "Consumer Adjustment to a Gasoline Tax," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(3), pages 427-432, August.
    5. Antonio M. Bento & Lawrence H. Goulder & Mark R. Jacobsen & Roger H. von Haefen, 2009. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased US Gasoline Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 667-699, June.
    6. Alan Greenspan & Darrel Cohen, 1999. "Motor Vehicle Stocks, Scrappage, And Sales," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 369-383, August.
    7. Anna Alberini & Winston Harrington & Virginia McConnell, 1995. "Determinants of Participation in Accelerated Vehicle-Retirement Programs," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(1), pages 93-112, Spring.
    8. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou, 1995. "Product Differentiation and Oligopoly in International Markets: The Case of the U.S. Automobile Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 891-951, July.
    9. Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel & Daniel Sperling, 2008. "Evidence of a Shift in the Short-Run Price Elasticity of Gasoline Demand," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 113-134.
    10. James Berkovec, 1985. "New Car Sales and Used Car Stocks: A Model of the Automobile Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 195-214, Summer.
    11. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2005. "Does Britain or the United States Have the Right Gasoline Tax?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1276-1289, September.
    12. Austin, David & Dinan, Terry, 2005. "Clearing the air: The costs and consequences of higher CAFE standards and increased gasoline taxes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 562-582, November.
    13. William C. Wheaton, 1982. "The Long-Run Structure of Transportation and Gasoline Demand," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 439-454, Autumn.
    14. Sarah E. West & Roberton C. Williams III, 2005. "The Cost of Reducing Gasoline Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 294-299, May.
    15. Charles F. Manski & Ephraim Goldin, 1983. "An Econometric Analysis of Automobile Scrappage," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 365-375, November.
    16. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    17. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, 1998. "The Effects of the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency Standards in the US," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 1-33, March.
    18. Davis, Michael C & Hamilton, James D, 2004. "Why Are Prices Sticky? The Dynamics of Wholesale Gasoline Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(1), pages 17-37, February.
    19. Thomas H. Klier & Joshua Linn, 2009. "The price of gasoline and the demand for fuel economy: evidence from monthly new vehicles sales data," Working Paper Series WP-09-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    20. Ian W. H. Parry & Margaret Walls & Winston Harrington, 2007. "Automobile Externalities and Policies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(2), pages 373-399, June.
    21. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    22. Lucas W. Davis & Matthew E. Kahn, 2008. "International Trade in Used Durable Goods: The Environmental Consequences of NAFTA," NBER Working Papers 14565, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Jonathan Haughton & Soumodip Sarkar, 1996. "Gasoline Tax as a Corrective Tax: Estimates for the United States, 1970-1991," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 103-126.
    24. Robert W. Hahn, 1995. "An Economic Analysis of Scrappage," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(2), pages 222-242, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shanjun Li & Joshua Linn & Erich Muehlegger, 2014. "Gasoline Taxes and Consumer Behavior," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 302-342, November.
    2. Liu, Yizao, 2010. "Gasoline Prices, Fuel Economy Efficiency And Automobile Replacement Dynamics," Working Paper series 148290, University of Connecticut, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy.
    3. Lawrence Goulder, 2007. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased U.S. Gasoline Taxes," Discussion Papers 07-009, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Banzhaf, H. Spencer & Kasim, M. Taha, 2019. "Fuel consumption and gasoline prices: The role of assortative matching between households and automobiles," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 1-25.
    5. Antonio M. Bento & Lawrence H. Goulder & Mark R. Jacobsen & Roger H. von Haefen, 2009. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased US Gasoline Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 667-699, June.
    6. Yizao Liu, 2010. "Gasoline Prices, Fuel Economy Efficiency And Automobile Replacement Dynamics," Working Papers 02, University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy.
    7. Junji Xiao & Xiaolan Zhou & Wei‐Min Hu, 2017. "Welfare Analysis Of The Vehicle Quota System In China," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(2), pages 617-650, May.
    8. Allcott, Hunt & Mullainathan, Sendhil & Taubinsky, Dmitry, 2014. "Energy policy with externalities and internalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 72-88.
    9. Dimitropoulos, Alexandros & Oueslati, Walid & Sintek, Christina, 2018. "The rebound effect in road transport: A meta-analysis of empirical studies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 163-179.
    10. Bruce W Hamilton & Molly Macauley, 1996. "Competition and Car Longevity," Economics Working Paper Archive 361, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    11. Naoki Wakamori, 2011. "Portfolio Considerations in Differentiated Product Purchases: An Application to the Japanese Automobile Market," Staff Working Papers 11-27, Bank of Canada.
    12. Santos, Georgina & Behrendt, Hannah & Maconi, Laura & Shirvani, Tara & Teytelboym, Alexander, 2010. "Part I: Externalities and economic policies in road transport," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 2-45.
    13. Anas, Alex & Hiramatsu, Tomoru, 2012. "The effect of the price of gasoline on the urban economy: From route choice to general equilibrium," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 855-873.
    14. Tscharaktschiew, Stefan, 2014. "Shedding light on the appropriateness of the (high) gasoline tax level in Germany," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 189-210.
    15. Lloro, Alicia & Brownstone, David, 2018. "Vehicle choice and utilization: Improving estimation with partially observed choices and hybrid pairs," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 137-152.
    16. Mathias Reynaert, 2021. "Abatement Strategies and the Cost of Environmental Regulation: Emission Standards on the European Car Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(1), pages 454-488.
    17. Kilian, Lutz & Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2024. "Heterogeneity in the pass-through from oil to gasoline prices: A new instrument for estimating the price elasticity of gasoline demand," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    18. Soren T. Anderson & Ian W. H. Parry & James M. Sallee & Carolyn Fischer, 2011. "Automobile Fuel Economy Standards: Impacts, Efficiency, and Alternatives," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(1), pages 89-108, Winter.
    19. Cantos-Sánchez, Pedro & Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau, Eva & Mulalic, Ismir, 2018. "The impact of scrappage programmes on the demand for new vehicles: Evidence from Spain," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 83-96.
    20. Langer, Ashley & Maheshri, Vikram & Winston, Clifford, 2017. "From gallons to miles: A disaggregate analysis of automobile travel and externality taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 34-46.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment; Related Parts and Equipment
    • Q31 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14450. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.