How do fuel taxes impact new car purchases? An evaluation using French consumer-level data

Pauline Givord, Celine Grislain-Letremy and Helene Naegele

Energy Economics, 2018, vol. 74, issue C, 76-96

Abstract: This study evaluates the impact of fuel taxes on new car purchases, using exhaustive individual-level data of monthly new car registrations in France. We use information on the car holder to account for heterogeneous preferences across purchasers, and we identify demand parameters through the large oil price fluctuations of this period. We find that the short-term sensitivity of demand with respect to fuel prices is low, particularly for corporate purchases. Using our estimates to compute elasticities, we assess the impact of a policy equalizing diesel and gasoline taxes. Such a policy reduces the share of diesel-engines without substantially changing the average fuel consumption or CO2 intensity of new cars. Alternatively, we find that a (revenue-equivalent) carbon tax has only small effects on average fuel consumption and CO2 intensity of new cars.

Keywords: Fuel prices; Automobile demand; Carbon dioxide emissions; Environmental tax (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 D12 H23 L62 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:74:y:2018:i:c:p:76-96

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2018.04.042

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