 The simple economics of motor vehicle pollution: A case for fuel taxEnergy Policy, 2015, vol. 85, issue C, 138-149 Abstract: The volume of pollution produced by an automobile is determined by driver's behavior along three margins: (i) vehicle selection, (ii) kilometers driven, and (iii) on-road fuel economy. The first two margins have been studied extensively, however the third has received scant attention. How significant is this ‘intensive margin’? What would be the optimal policies when it is taken into account? The paper develops and analyzes a simple model of the technical and behavioral mechanisms that determine the volume emissions produced by a car. The results show that an optimal fuel tax would provide drivers with appropriate incentives along all three margins and that only public information is needed for a fuel tax to be set optimally. In contrast, an optimal distance tax would require private information. Lastly, relative to the optimal fuel tax, a simple uniform fuel tax is shown to be progressive. Thus, being already deployed worldwide, a uniform fuel tax is an attractive second-best policy. These findings should be accounted for when designing new mechanisms to alleviate motor vehicle pollution. Keywords: Automobile externalities; Car pollution; CO2 emissions; Fuel economy; Driving behavior; Distance tax; Fuel tax (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:85:y:2015:i:c:p:138-149 DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2015.05.020 Access Statistics for this article Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier |
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