Carbon Tax Salience and Gasoline Demand

We demonstrate that the carbon tax imposed by the Canadian province of British Columbia, a unique carbon pricing policy that comprehensively applies to all fossil fuels, caused a decline in short-run gasoline demand that is significantly greater than would be expected from an equivalent increase in the market price of gasoline. That the carbon tax is more salient, or yields a larger change in demand than equivalent market price movements, is robust to a range of specifications including intuitively plausible and strong instrumental variables. Along with calculating the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the tax, we discuss potential explanations for the differential consumer responses to the carbon tax relative to the marketdetermined price.