IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-16-00487.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gas Prices and Red light Violations in Chicago

Author

Listed:
  • Srikant Devaraj

    (Center for Business and Economic Research, Miller College of Business, Ball State University)

  • Pankaj C Patel

    (Villanova School of Business, Villanova University)

Abstract

Fuel efficient speeds in the US range between 40 and 50 mph. With increasing gas prices, to maintain fuel efficient speeds, drivers reduce speeds on highways. However, as most urban driving is below 50 mph, a reverse is possible – drivers could increase speeds to increase fuel efficiency. We use the context of running a red light as a decision to speed, a context not driven by lower congestion resulting from higher gas prices. For $1 increase in price of gas per gallon, number of red-light violations in Chicago increased by 5.95 percent. The findings are robust to controlling for daily congestion levels in Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • Srikant Devaraj & Pankaj C Patel, 2016. "Gas Prices and Red light Violations in Chicago," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(3), pages 1844-1853.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-16-00487
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2016/Volume36/EB-16-V36-I3-P180.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas E. Burger & Daniel T. Kaffine, 2009. "Gas Prices, Traffic, and Freeway Speeds in Los Angeles," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 652-657, August.
    2. Nishitateno, Shuhei & Burke, Paul J., 2014. "The motorcycle Kuznets curve," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 116-123.
    3. Haucap, Justus & Müller, Hans Christian, 2012. "The Effects of Gasoline Price Regulations: Experimental Evidence," DICE Discussion Papers 47, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    4. Wolff, Hendrik, 2014. "Value of time: Speeding behavior and gasoline prices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 71-88.
    5. 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.
    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. Knittel, Christopher R. & Tanaka, Shinsuke, 2021. "Fuel economy and the price of gasoline: Evidence from fueling-level micro data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    2. Brent, Daniel & Beland, Louis-Philippe, 2020. "Traffic congestion, transportation policies, and the performance of first responders," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    3. Bento, Antonio M. & Hughes, Jonathan E. & Kaffine, Daniel, 2013. "Carpooling and driver responses to fuel price changes: Evidence from traffic flows in Los Angeles," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 41-56.
    4. Brandon Cunningham & Jacob LaRiviere & Casey J. Wichman, 2021. "Clustered into control: Heterogeneous causal impacts of water infrastructure failure," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1417-1439, July.
    5. Paul J. Burke & Shuhei Nishitateno, 2015. "Gasoline Prices And Road Fatalities: International Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(3), pages 1437-1450, July.
    6. Antonio Bento & Daniel Kaffine & Kevin Roth & Matthew Zaragoza-Watkins, 2014. "The Effects of Regulation in the Presence of Multiple Unpriced Externalities: Evidence from the Transportation Sector," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 1-29, August.
    7. Tscharaktschiew, Stefan, 2020. "Why are highway speed limits really justified? An equilibrium speed choice analysis," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 317-351.
    8. Wichman, Casey J. & Cunningham, Brandon, 2023. "Notching for free: Do cyclists reveal the opportunity cost of time?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    9. Hamilton, Timothy L. & Wichman, Casey J., 2018. "Bicycle infrastructure and traffic congestion: Evidence from DC's Capital Bikeshare," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 72-93.
    10. Ang, Amanda & Christensen, Peter & Vieira, Renato, 2020. "Should congested cities reduce their speed limits? Evidence from São Paulo, Brazil," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    11. 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.
    12. Jonathan E. Hughes & Daniel Kaffine, 2013. "When is Encouraging Consumption of Common Property Second Best? Sorting, Congestion and Entry in the Commons," Working Papers 2013-05, Colorado School of Mines, Division of Economics and Business.
    13. Bergeaud, Antonin & Raimbault, Juste, 2020. "An empirical analysis of the spatial variability of fuel prices in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 131-143.
    14. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2017. "Geographical dispersion of consumer search behaviour," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(57), pages 5740-5752, December.
    15. Landry, Craig E. & Shonkwiler, J. Scott & Whitehead, John C., 2020. "Economic Values of Coastal Erosion Management: Joint Estimation of Use and Existence Values with recreation demand and contingent valuation data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    16. Marco Percoco, 2010. "Urban Transport Policies And The Environment: Evidence From Italy," Articles, International Journal of Transport Economics, vol. 37(2).
    17. Li, Jiewei & Lu, Ming & Lu, Tianyi, 2022. "Constructing compact cities: How urban regeneration can enhance growth and relieve congestion," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    18. Itani, Ibrahim MS & Cassidy, Michael J. PhD & Daganzo, Carlos F. PhD, 2021. "Synergies of Combining Demand- and Supply-Side Measures to Manage Congested Streets," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt71j7z3wv, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    19. Wadud, Zia, 2020. "The effects of e-ridehailing on motorcycle ownership in an emerging-country megacity," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 301-312.
    20. Venables, Anthony & Duranton, Gilles, 2018. "Place-Based Policies for Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 12889, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    traffic safety; gas prices; red light violations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R4 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics
    • R1 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-16-00487. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.