IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-09-34.html

Lose Some, Save Some: Obesity, Automobile Demand, and Gasoline Consumption in the U.S

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Shanjun

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Liu, Yanyan
  • Zhang, Junjie

Abstract

This paper examines the unexplored link between the prevalence of overweight and obesity and vehicle demand in the United States. Exploring annual sales data of new passenger vehicles at the model level in 48 U.S. counties from 1999 to 2005, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the rate of overweight and obesity reduces the average MPG of new vehicles demanded by 2.5 percent: an effect that requires a 30 cent increase in gasoline prices to counteract. Our findings suggest that policies to reduce overweight and obesity can have additional benefits for energy security and the environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Shanjun & Liu, Yanyan & Zhang, Junjie, 2009. "Lose Some, Save Some: Obesity, Automobile Demand, and Gasoline Consumption in the U.S," RFF Working Paper Series dp-09-34, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-09-34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-09-34.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:aen:journl:2007v28-01-a02 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2005. "Does Britain or the United States Have the Right Gasoline Tax?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1276-1289, September.
    5. Arie Beresteanu & Shanjun Li, 2011. "Gasoline Prices, Government Support, And The Demand For Hybrid Vehicles In The United States," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(1), pages 161-182, February.
    6. Sarah E. West & Roberton C. Williams III, 2005. "The Cost of Reducing Gasoline Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 294-299, May.
    7. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    8. 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.
    9. Shanjun Li, 2012. "Traffic safety and vehicle choice: quantifying the effects of the ‘arms race’ on American roads," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 34-62, January.
    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. Boyd-Swan, Casey & Herbst, Chris M., 2012. "Pain at the pump: Gasoline prices and subjective well-being," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 160-175.

    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. Li, Shanjun & Liu, Yanyan & Zhang, Junjie, 2011. "Lose some, save some: Obesity, automobile demand, and gasoline consumption," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 52-66, January.
    2. Kahn, Matthew E. & Walsh, Randall, 2015. "Cities and the Environment," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 405-465, Elsevier.
    3. 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.
    4. Liu, Yizao, 2010. "Gasoline Prices, Fuel Economy Efficiency And Automobile Replacement Dynamics," Working Paper series 148290, University of Connecticut, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy.
    5. 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.
    6. Durrmeyer, Isis & Samano, Mario, 2016. "To Rebate or Not to Rebate: Fuel Economy Standards vs. Feebates?," TSE Working Papers 16-732, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised May 2017.
    7. 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.
    8. Zhou, Fan & Yang, Ziying & Wu, Di & Zheng, Zuduo, 2024. "Shifting towards luxury cars: The price and environmental effects of Beijing’s vehicle lottery system and an alternative policy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Cristian Huse & Claudio Lucinda, 2014. "The Market Impact and the Cost of Environmental Policy: Evidence from the Swedish Green Car Rebate," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(578), pages 393-419, August.
    11. Rik Rozendaal & Herman Vollebergh, 2025. "Policy-Induced Innovation in Clean Technologies: Evidence from the Car Market," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(3), pages 565-598.
    12. Lawrence Goulder, 2007. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased U.S. Gasoline Taxes," Discussion Papers 07-009, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Nathan Delacrétaz & Bruno Lanz & Jeremy van Dijk, 2020. "The chicken or the egg: Technology adoption and network infrastructure in the market for electric vehicles," IRENE Working Papers 20-08, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    16. Mandys, Filip & Taneja, Shivani, 2024. "Demand for green and fossil fuel automobiles," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    17. Shanjun Li & Xianglei Zhu & Yiding Ma & Fan Zhang & Hui Zhou, 2022. "The Role of Government in the Market for Electric Vehicles: Evidence from China," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(2), pages 450-485, March.
    18. Huseynov, Samir & Palma, Marco A., "undated". "Does California’s LCFS Reduce CO2 Emissions?," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274200, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Ziying Yang & Manping Tang, 2019. "Welfare Analysis of Government Subsidy Programs for Fuel-Efficient Vehicles and New Energy Vehicles in China," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(2), pages 911-937, October.
    20. Hennessy, Hugh & Tol, Richard S.J., 2011. "The impact of tax reform on new car purchases in Ireland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 7059-7067.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:rff:dpaper:dp-09-34. 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: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    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.