IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v74y2018icp76-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How do fuel taxes impact new car purchases? An evaluation using French consumer-level data

Author

Listed:
  • Givord, Pauline
  • Grislain-Letrémy, Céline
  • Naegele, Helene

Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of fuel taxes on new car purchases, using exhaustive individual-level data of monthly new car registrations in France. We use information on the car holder to account for heterogeneous preferences across purchasers, and we identify demand parameters through the large oil price fluctuations of this period. We find that the short-term sensitivity of demand with respect to fuel prices is low, particularly for corporate purchases. Using our estimates to compute elasticities, we assess the impact of a policy equalizing diesel and gasoline taxes. Such a policy reduces the share of diesel-engines without substantially changing the average fuel consumption or CO2 intensity of new cars. Alternatively, we find that a (revenue-equivalent) carbon tax has only small effects on average fuel consumption and CO2 intensity of new cars.

Suggested Citation

  • Givord, Pauline & Grislain-Letrémy, Céline & Naegele, Helene, 2018. "How do fuel taxes impact new car purchases? An evaluation using French consumer-level data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 76-96.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:74:y:2018:i:c:p:76-96
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2018.04.042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988318301671
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2018.04.042?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xavier D'Haultfœuille & Pauline Givord & Xavier Boutin, 2014. "The Environmental Effect of Green Taxation: The Case of the French Bonus/Malus," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(578), pages 444-480, August.
    2. Anderson, Soren T. & Kellogg, Ryan & Sallee, James M., 2013. "What do consumers believe about future gasoline prices?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 383-403.
    3. Sanderson, Eleanor & Windmeijer, Frank, 2016. "A weak instrument F-test in linear IV models with multiple endogenous variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 212-221.
    4. Mayeres, Inge & Proost, Stef, 2001. "Should diesel cars in Europe be discouraged?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 453-470, July.
    5. Miravete, Eugenio & Moral, Maria & Thurk, Jeff, 2015. "Innovation, Emissions Policy, and Competitive Advantage in the Diffusion of European Diesel Automobiles," CEPR Discussion Papers 10783, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. 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.
    7. Berry, Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1993. "Some Applications and Limitations of Recent Advances in Empirical Industrial Organization: Merger Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 247-252, May.
    8. Clerides, Sofronis & Zachariadis, Theodoros, 2008. "The effect of standards and fuel prices on automobile fuel economy: An international analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2657-2672, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Shanjun Li & Christopher Timmins & Roger H. von Haefen, 2009. "How Do Gasoline Prices Affect Fleet Fuel Economy?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 113-137, August.
    11. Brons, Martijn & Nijkamp, Peter & Pels, Eric & Rietveld, Piet, 2008. "A meta-analysis of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A SUR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2105-2122, September.
    12. Frondel, Manuel & Ritter, Nolan & Vance, Colin, 2012. "Heterogeneity in the rebound effect: Further evidence for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 461-467.
    13. Koo, Yoonmo & Kim, Chang Seob & Hong, Junhee & Choi, Ie-Jung & Lee, Jongsu, 2012. "Consumer preferences for automobile energy-efficiency grades," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 446-451.
    14. Christopher R. Knittel & Konstantinos Metaxoglou, 2014. "Estimation of Random-Coefficient Demand Models: Two Empiricists' Perspective," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 34-59, March.
    15. Steven T. Berry, 1994. "Estimating Discrete-Choice Models of Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 242-262, Summer.
    16. Klier, Thomas & Linn, Joshua, 2013. "Fuel prices and new vehicle fuel economy—Comparing the United States and Western Europe," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 280-300.
    17. 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.
    18. Cardell, N. Scott, 1997. "Variance Components Structures for the Extreme-Value and Logistic Distributions with Application to Models of Heterogeneity," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 185-213, April.
    19. Jerome Adda & Russell Cooper, 2000. "Balladurette and Juppette: A Discrete Analysis of Scrapping Subsidies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 778-806, August.
    20. Klier, Thomas & Linn, Joshua, 2011. "Fuel Prices and New Vehicle Fuel Economy in Europe," RFF Working Paper Series dp-11-37, Resources for the Future.
    21. Sallee, James M. & West, Sarah E. & Fan, Wei, 2016. "Do consumers recognize the value of fuel economy? Evidence from used car prices and gasoline price fluctuations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 61-73.
    22. Ye Feng & Don Fullerton & Li Gan, 2013. "Vehicle choices, miles driven, and pollution policies," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 4-29, August.
    23. Frank Verboven, 2002. "Quality-Based Price Discrimination and Tax Incidence: Evidence from Gasoline and Diesel Cars," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(2), pages 275-297, Summer.
    24. Verboven, Frank & Grigolon, Laura & Reynaert, Mathias, 2014. "Consumer valuation of fuel costs and the effectiveness of tax policy: Evidence from the European car market," CEPR Discussion Papers 10301, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    25. Hunt Allcott & Nathan Wozny, 2014. "Gasoline Prices, Fuel Economy, and the Energy Paradox," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 779-795, December.
    26. Helfand, Gloria & Wolverton, Ann, 2011. "Evaluating the Consumer Response to Fuel Economy: A Review of the Literature," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 5(2), pages 103-146, May.
    27. Meghan R. Busse & Christopher R. Knittel & Florian Zettelmeyer, 2013. "Are Consumers Myopic? Evidence from New and Used Car Purchases," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 220-256, February.
    28. Manuel Frondel & Colin Vance, 2014. "More Pain at the Diesel Pump? An Econometric Comparison of Diesel and Petrol Price Elasticities," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 48(3), pages 449-463, September.
    29. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413, September.
    30. Timothy B. Armstrong, 2016. "Large Market Asymptotics for Differentiated Product Demand Estimators With Economic Models of Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1961-1980, September.
    31. Laura Grigolon & Frank Verboven, 2014. "Nested Logit or Random Coefficients Logit? A Comparison of Alternative Discrete Choice Models of Product Differentiation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 916-935, December.
    32. Lucas W. Davis & Lutz Kilian, 2011. "Estimating the effect of a gasoline tax on carbon emissions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(7), pages 1187-1214, November.
    33. Greene, David L., 2011. "Uncertainty, loss aversion, and markets for energy efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 608-616, July.
    34. Pakes, Ariel & Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James A, 1993. "Applications and Limitations of Some Recent Advances in Empirical Industrial Organization: Price Indexes and the Analysis of Environmental Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 241-246, May.
    35. Hivert, Laurent, 2013. "Short-term break in the French love for diesel?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 11-22.
    36. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    37. 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.
    38. Frank Verboven, 1996. "International Price Discrimination in the European Car Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 240-268, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Orkhan Nadirov & Jana Vychytilová & Bruce Dehning, 2020. "Carbon Taxes and the Composition of New Passenger Car Sales in Europe," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-15, September.
    2. Chaudhuri, Kausik & Huaccha, Gissell, 2023. "Who bears the energy cost? Local income deprivation and the household energy efficiency gap," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    3. Xu, Lei & Chen, Jingrui & Qu, Fang & Wang, Jue & Lu, Yi, 2022. "Queuing to refuel before price rise in China: How do gasoline price changes affect consumer responses and behaviours?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    4. Mariano Gallo & Mario Marinelli, 2020. "Sustainable Mobility: A Review of Possible Actions and Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-39, September.
    5. Alberini, Anna & Horvath, Marco, 2021. "All car taxes are not created equal: Evidence from Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    6. Axsen, Jonn & Wolinetz, Michael, 2021. "Taxes, tolls and ZEV zones for climate: Synthesizing insights on effectiveness, efficiency, equity, acceptability and implementation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).

    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. Pauline Givord & Céline Grislain-Letrémy & Helene Naegele, 2014. "How Does Fuel Taxation Impact New Car Purchases?: An Evaluation Using French Consumer-Level Data," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1428, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. P. Givord & C. Grislain-Letrémy & H. Naegele, 2014. "How does fuel taxation impact new car purchases? An evaluation using French consumer-level dataset," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2014-14, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    3. D’Haultfœuille, Xavier & Durrmeyer, Isis & Février, Philippe, 2016. "Disentangling sources of vehicle emissions reduction in France: 2003–2008," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 186-229.
    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. 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.
    6. Allcott, Hunt & Mullainathan, Sendhil & Taubinsky, Dmitry, 2014. "Energy policy with externalities and internalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 72-88.
    7. Verboven, Frank & Grigolon, Laura & Reynaert, Mathias, 2014. "Consumer valuation of fuel costs and the effectiveness of tax policy: Evidence from the European car market," CEPR Discussion Papers 10301, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Cohen, François & Glachant, Matthieu & Söderberg, Magnus, 2017. "Consumer myopia, imperfect competition and the energy efficiency gap: Evidence from the UK refrigerator market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-23.
    9. Fran�ois Cohen & Matthieu Glachant & Magnus S�derberg, 2015. "The impact of energy prices on energy efficiency: Evidence from the UK refrigerator market," GRI Working Papers 179, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    10. 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.
    11. Linn, Joshua, "undated". "Explaining the Adoption of Diesel Fuel Passenger Cars in Europe," RFF Working Paper Series dp-14-08-rev, Resources for the Future.
    12. Donna, Javier D., 2018. "Measuring Long-Run Price Elasticities in Urban Travel Demand," MPRA Paper 90059, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. James M. Sallee, 2014. "Rational Inattention and Energy Efficiency," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(3), pages 781-820.
    14. Mogens Fosgerau & Julien Monardo & André de Palma, 2024. "The Inverse Product Differentiation Logit Model," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 329-370, November.
    15. Soren T. Anderson & James M. Sallee, 2016. "Designing Policies to Make Cars Greener: A Review of the Literature," NBER Working Papers 22242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Matsushima, Hiroshi & Khanna, Madhu, 2018. "Revealing Auto-Manufacturers’ Implicit Pricing Strategy under the Reformed CAFE Standard: A Reduced Form Approach," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274421, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Pavan, Giulia, 2017. "Green Car Adoption and the Supply of Alternative Fuels," TSE Working Papers 17-875, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    18. Leard, Benjamin, 2018. "Consumer inattention and the demand for vehicle fuel cost savings," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-16.
    19. Laura Grigolon, 2021. "Blurred boundaries: A flexible approach for segmentation applied to the car market," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(4), pages 1273-1305, November.
    20. Joshua Linn, 2016. "The Rebound Effect for Passenger Vehicles," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fuel prices; Automobile demand; Carbon dioxide emissions; Environmental tax;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • 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
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    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:eee:eneeco:v:74:y:2018:i:c:p:76-96. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    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.