The Effectiveness of Policy Measures to Reduce CO2 Emissions from Passenger Cars in Austria

Tobias Eibinger () and Hans Manner ()
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Tobias Eibinger: University of Graz, Austria
Hans Manner: University of Graz, Austria

No 2022-04, Graz Economics Papers from University of Graz, Department of Economics

Abstract: Passenger transport plays a crucial role in achieving climate-neutrality. While a switch to zero-emission vehicles is a crucial part in this process, policy makers likely have to resort to a differentiated mix of complementary policy measures to achieve global targets on climate-neutrality. To help policy makers design effective measures, we analyse the effect of environmental policies on CO2 emissions from passenger cars in Austria from 1965-2019. In a first step, we propose an environmental policy stringency index for the Austrian transport sector for the period 1950-2019. In a second step, we analyse the effect of different policies on transport-related CO2 emissions in a structural vector autoregressive model. This allows us to control for possible interdependencies between the variables. We find that taxes on vehicle-related emissions and policies that influence the usage of cars (through, e.g., speed limits, car-free days, road pricing) can significantly reduce CO2 emissions and contribute to an accelerated transition towards a carbon-neutral society. Among tax-based policies, we find emission-based taxes on new vehicles to be most effective. Finally, our results indicate that more efficient fuels can reduce emissions from existing vehicles at a limited magnitude.

Keywords: Climate change; CO2 emissions; passenger transport; mitigation; policy stringency; vector autoregression. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 C54 Q54 Q58 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-res and nep-tre
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