What Do Consumers Believe About Future Gasoline Prices?
Abstract
A full understanding of how gasoline prices affect consumer behavior frequently requires information on how consumers forecast future gasoline prices. We provide the first evidence on the nature of these forecasts by analyzing two decades of data on gasoline price expectations from the Michigan Survey of Consumers. We find that average consumer beliefs are typically indistinguishable from a no-change forecast, justifying an assumption commonly made in the literature on consumer valuation of energy efficiency. We also provide evidence on circumstances in which consumer forecasts are likely to deviate from no-change and on significant cross-consumer forecast heterogeneity.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 16974.Length:
Date of creation: Apr 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16974
Note: EEE IO PE
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Related research
Keywords:Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
- L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment
- Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General
- Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2011-04-30 (All new papers)
- NEP-ENE-2011-04-30 (Energy Economics)
- NEP-MKT-2011-04-30 (Marketing)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Stephen P. Holland & Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel & Nathan C. Parker, 2011.
"Some Inconvenient Truths About Climate Change Policy: The Distributional Impacts of Transportation Policies,"
NBER Working Papers
17386, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Stephen P. Holland & Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel & Nathan C. Parker, 2011. "Some Inconvenient Truths About Climate Change Policy: The Distributional Impacts of Transportation Policies," Working Papers 1116, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
- Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hemous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2012.
"Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry,"
NBER Working Papers
18596, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Aghion, Philippe & Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Hemous, David & Martin, Ralf & Van Reenen, John, 2012. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 9267, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hemous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2012. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," CEP Discussion Papers dp1178, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
- Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hemous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2012. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," Working Papers 2012.99, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
- Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hemous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2012. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Papers 102, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
- Klier, Thomas & Linn, Joshua, 2011.
"Fuel Prices and New Vehicle Fuel Economy in Europe,"
Discussion Papers
dp-11-37, Resources For the Future.
- Thomas Klier & Joshua Linn, 2011. "Fuel Prices and New Vehicle Fuel Economy in Europe," Working Papers 1117, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
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