IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-21-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Income on Vehicle Demand: Evidence from China’s New Vehicle Market

Author

Listed:
  • Shen, Chang
  • Linn, Joshua

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Growth of private vehicle ownership in low-income and emerging countries is a dominant factor in forecasts of global oil demand and greenhouse gas emissions. Countries such as China are expected to experience rapid income growth over the next few decades, but little causal evidence exists on its effect on car ownership in these countries. Using city-level data on new car sales and income from 2005 to 2017, and using export-led growth to isolate plausibly exogenous income variation, we estimate an elasticity of new car sales to income of about 2.5. This estimate indicates that recent projections of vehicle sales in China have understated actual sales by 36 percent and carbon dioxide emissions by 18 million metric tons in 2017. The results suggest that, to meet its climate objectives, China’s climate policies will need to be substantially more aggressive than previous forecasts indicate.

Suggested Citation

  • Shen, Chang & Linn, Joshua, 2021. "The Effect of Income on Vehicle Demand: Evidence from China’s New Vehicle Market," RFF Working Paper Series 21-17, Resources for the Future.
  • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-21-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rff.org/documents/3006/VehicleDemandWorkingPaper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abu Toasin Oakil & Dorien Manting & Hans Nijland, 2018. "The role of individual characteristics in car ownership shortly after relationship dissolution," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(6), pages 1871-1882, November.
    2. van Ruijven, Bas J. & van Vuuren, Detlef P. & van Vliet, Jasper & Mendoza Beltran, Angelica & Deetman, Sebastiaan & den Elzen, Michel G.J., 2012. "Implications of greenhouse gas emission mitigation scenarios for the main Asian regions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(S3), pages 459-469.
    3. Jarreau, Joachim & Poncet, Sandra, 2012. "Export sophistication and economic growth: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 281-292.
    4. Wang, Yunshi & Teter, Jacob & Sperling, Daniel, 2011. "China's soaring vehicle population: Even greater than forecasted?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3296-3306, June.
    5. José Luis Montiel Olea & Carolin Pflueger, 2013. "A Robust Test for Weak Instruments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 358-369, July.
    6. Zhao, Tingting & Bell, Lindsey & Horner, Mark W. & Sulik, John & Zhang, Jinfeng, 2012. "Consumer responses towards home energy financial incentives: A survey-based study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 291-297.
    7. Levin, Andrew & Raut, Lakshmi K, 1997. "Complementarities between Exports and Human Capital in Economic Growth: Evidence from the Semi-industrialized Countries," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 155-174, October.
    8. He, Kebin & Huo, Hong & Zhang, Qiang & He, Dongquan & An, Feng & Wang, Michael & Walsh, Michael P., 2005. "Oil consumption and CO2 emissions in China's road transport: current status, future trends, and policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 1499-1507, August.
    9. Mohsen Mehrara & Samaneh Seijani & Abbas Rezazadeh Karsalari, 2017. "Determinants of high-tech export in developing countries based on Bayesian model averaging," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 35(1), pages 199-215.
    10. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Ferreira, Fernando, 2015. "Causal Inference in Urban and Regional Economics," 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 3-68, Elsevier.
    11. Shafik, Nemat & Bandyopadhyay, Sushenjit, 1992. "Economic growth and environmental quality : time series and cross-country evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 904, The World Bank.
    12. Stuhler, Jan & Jaeger, David & Ruist, Joakim, 2018. "Shift-Share Instruments and the Impact of Immigration," CEPR Discussion Papers 12701, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Yin, Jianhua & Zheng, Mingzheng & Chen, Jian, 2015. "The effects of environmental regulation and technical progress on CO2 Kuznets curve: An evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 97-108.
    14. Maximilian Auffhammer & Catherine D. Wolfram, 2014. "Powering Up China: Income Distributions and Residential Electricity Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 575-580, May.
    15. Wagner, Martin, 2008. "The carbon Kuznets curve: A cloudy picture emitted by bad econometrics?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 388-408, August.
    16. Shanjun Li, 2018. "Better Lucky Than Rich? Welfare Analysis of Automobile Licence Allocations in Beijing and Shanghai," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 2389-2428.
    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. Zhimin Zhou & Xinyue Ye & Xiangyu Ge, 2017. "The Impacts of Technical Progress on Sulfur Dioxide Kuznets Curve in China: A Spatial Panel Data Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-27, April.
    2. Stefano Fusaro & Enrique López-Bazo, 2018. "“The Impact of Immigration on Native Employment: Evidence from Italy”," AQR Working Papers 201811, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Jul 2018.
    3. Rodríguez, Miguel & Pena-Boquete, Yolanda & Pardo-Fernández, Juan Carlos, 2016. "Revisiting Environmental Kuznets Curves through the energy price lens," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 32-41.
    4. Pascalau, Razvan & Qirjo, Dhimitri, 2017. "TTIP and the Environmental Kuznets Curve," MPRA Paper 80192, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Thomas Jobert & Fatih Karanfil & Anna Tykhonenko, 2012. "Trade and Environment: Further Empirical Evidence from Heterogeneous Panels Using Aggregate Data," GREDEG Working Papers 2012-15, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    6. Seker, Fahri & Ertugrul, Hasan Murat & Cetin, Murat, 2015. "The impact of foreign direct investment on environmental quality: A bounds testing and causality analysis for Turkey," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 347-356.
    7. Priscilla Massa-Sánchez & Luis Quintana-Romero & Ronny Correa-Quezada & María de la Cruz del Río-Rama, 2020. "Empirical Evidence in Ecuador between Economic Growth and Environmental Deterioration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-20, January.
    8. Yin, Jianhua & Zheng, Mingzheng & Chen, Jian, 2015. "The effects of environmental regulation and technical progress on CO2 Kuznets curve: An evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 97-108.
    9. Atwi, Majed & Barberán, Ramón & Mur, Jesús & Angulo, Ana, 2018. "CO2 Kuznets Curve Revisited: From Cross-Sections to Panel Data Models," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 40, pages 169-196.
    10. Abolhosseini, Shahrouz & Heshmati, Almas & Altmann, Jörn, 2014. "The Effect of Renewable Energy Development on Carbon Emission Reduction: An Empirical Analysis for the EU-15 Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 7989, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Wang, Kuan-Min, 2012. "Modelling the nonlinear relationship between CO2 emissions from oil and economic growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1537-1547.
    12. Elliott Ash & Massimo Morelli & Matia Vannoni, 2022. "More Laws, More Growth? Evidence from U.S. States," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22178, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    13. Imad Moosa, 2018. "Growth and Environmental Degradation in MENA Countries: Methodological Issues and Empirical Evidence," Working Papers 1260, Economic Research Forum, revised 03 Dec 2018.
    14. Dillender, Marcus & McInerney, Melissa, 2020. "The role of Mexican immigration to the United States in improved workplace safety for natives from 1980 to 2015," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    15. Wu, Jian-Xin & He, Ling-Yun & Zhang, ZhongXiang, 2019. "Does China Fall into Poverty-Environment Traps? Evidence from Long-term Income Dynamics and Urban Air Pollution," ETA: Economic Theory and Applications 285027, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    16. Zilio, Mariana & Recalde, Marina, 2011. "GDP and environment pressure: The role of energy in Latin America and the Caribbean," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 7941-7949.
    17. Wu, Ye & Yang, Zhengdong & Lin, Bohong & Liu, Huan & Wang, Renjie & Zhou, Boya & Hao, Jiming, 2012. "Energy consumption and CO2 emission impacts of vehicle electrification in three developed regions of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 537-550.
    18. Marzio Galeotti & Matteo Manera & Alessandro Lanza, 2006. "On the Robustness of Robustness Checks of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Working Papers 2006.22, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    19. Goher-Ur-Rehman Mir & Servaas Storm, 2016. "Carbon Emissions and Economic Growth: Production-based versus Consumption-based Evidence on Decoupling," Working Papers Series 41, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    20. Kunnas, Jan & Myllyntaus, Timo, 2010. "Anxiety and technological change -- Explaining the inverted U-curve of sulphur dioxide emissions in late 20th century Finland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1587-1593, May.

    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-21-17. 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.