Vehicle Ownership Analysis Based on GDP per Capita in China: 1963–2050

Tian Wu, Hongmei Zhao and Xunmin Ou
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Tian Wu: School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Hongmei Zhao: Institute of Econometrics and Statistics, School of Economics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
Xunmin Ou: Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Sustainability, 2014, vol. 6, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: This paper presents the Gompertz function of per capita GDP and vehicle stock to forecast the vehicle ownership of China through to 2050 against a background of increasing energy use and CO 2 emissions associated with the potential demands of on-road vehicles. We forecast the level of vehicle stock in China based on the extant patterns of vehicle development in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Europe, the United States and Japan. The results show that the OECD pattern and European pattern are more suitable for describing China’s vehicle stock growth when compared with Japanese and U.S. patterns. The study finds that China’s vehicle stock has developed as an S-shaped curve. During the forecast period, the inflection point of the increasing curve appears around the year 2030, with the annual growth of vehicle ownership increasing from 6.13% to 9.50% in the prior period prior and subsequently dropping to 0.45% in 2050. Based on the sensitivity analysis and robustness check, the impact of different Gompertz curve parameters and GDP growth rates on vehicle stock projection are analyzed.

Keywords: vehicle ownership; per capita GDP; Gompertz function; MARMA model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

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