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Does the Swiss Car Market Reward Fuel Efficient Cars?

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  • Alberini, Anna
  • Bareit, Markus
  • Filippini, Massimo

Abstract

To correct market failures due to the presence of negative externalities associated with energy consumption, governments have adopted a variety of policies, including taxes, subsidies, regulations and standards, and information-based policies. For example, labels that clearly convey energy consumption rates, associated costs, and emissions of conventional pollutants and CO2, have been devised and used in the last two decades in several countries. In 2003, Switzerland introduced a system of fuel economy labels, based on grades ranging from A to G, where is A best and G is worst, to assist consumers in making decisions that improve the fleet’s fuel economy and lower emissions. We use a dataset documenting all passenger cars approved for sale in Switzerland each year from 2000 to 2011 to answer three key research questions. First, what is the willingness to pay for fuel economy? Second, do Swiss drivers—or Swiss auto importers on their behalf—appear to do a one-to-one tradeoff between car purchase price and savings on fuel costs over the lifetime of the car? Third, does the label have an additional effect on price, all else the same, above and beyond that of fuel efficiency alone? Hedonic pricing regressions that exploit the variation in fuel economy across make-models, and over time within make-models, suggest that there is a (modest) capitalization of fuel economy into car prices. The diesel premium, however, exceeds the future fuel cost savings made possible by diesel cars, even at zero discount rates. An alternate calculation suggests that the fuel economy premium is consistent with a very low discount rate (2.5%). We use a sharp regression discontinuity design (RDD) based on the mechanism used by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy to assign cars to the fuel economy label to see if the label has an independent effect on price, above and beyond that of the fuel economy. The RDD approach estimates the effect to be 6-11%. To broaden the fuel economy range over which we assess the effect of the A label, we also deploy matching estimators, and find that the effect of an A label on car price is approximately 5%.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberini, Anna & Bareit, Markus & Filippini, Massimo, 2014. "Does the Swiss Car Market Reward Fuel Efficient Cars?," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 165756, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:feemcl:165756
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.165756
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Todd D. Gerarden & Richard G. Newell & Robert N. Stavins & Robert C. Stowe, 2015. "An Assessment of the Energy-Efficiency Gap and Its Implications for Climate Change Policy," Working Papers 2015.28, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    2. Weber, Sylvain, 2019. "Consumers' preferences on the Swiss car market: A revealed preference approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 109-118.
    3. Todd D. Gerarden & Richard G. Newell & Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Gap," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1486-1525, December.
    4. Marie Hyland & Anna Alberini & Se n Lyons, 2016. "The Effect of Energy Efficiency Labeling: Bunching and Prices in the Irish Residential Property Market," Trinity Economics Papers tep0516, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2016.
    5. de Ayala, Amaia & Galarraga, Ibon & Spadaro, Joseph V., 2016. "The price of energy efficiency in the Spanish housing market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 16-24.
    6. Galarraga, Ibon & Ramos, Ana & Lucas, Josu & Labandeira, Xavier, 2014. "The price of energy efficiency in the Spanish car market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 272-282.
    7. Anna Alberini, Markus Bareit and Massimo Filippini, 2016. "What is the Effect of Fuel Efficiency Information on Car Prices? Evidence from Switzerland," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    8. Kurz, Claudia, 2017. "Finanzielle Anreizwirkung der Förderung von Elektromobilität durch die Bundesregierung: Empirische Evidenz bezüglich der Umweltprämie und der Kfz-Steuerbefreiung," UASM Discussion Paper Series 6/2017, University of Applied Sciences Mainz.
    9. Collins, Matthew & Curtis, John, 2018. "Evidence, drivers and sources of distortions in the distribution of building energy ratings prior to and after energy efficient," Papers WP535, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    10. Ramos, A. & Gago, A. & Labandeira, X. & Linares, P., 2015. "The role of information for energy efficiency in the residential sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(S1), pages 17-29.
    11. Ramírez Muñoz de Toro, Gonzalo R. & Uriarte, Juan I. & Delbianco, Fernando & Larrosa, Juan M.C., 2017. "Un modelo hedónico de precios en línea de automóviles usados en Argentina || A Hedonic Model of Online Prices of Used Cars in Argentina," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 24(1), pages 25-53, Diciembre.

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    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy;

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