Vehicle Lifetime and Scrappage Behavior: Trends in the U.S. Used Car Market

Antonio Bento, Kevin Roth and Yiou Zuo

The Energy Journal, 2018, vol. 39, issue 1, 159-184

Abstract: Using national data on vehicles in operation, we examine long-run changes in scrappage patterns in passenger cars and light trucks in the United States between 1969 and 2014. We find that the average lifetime for passenger cars has increased from 12.2 to 15.6 years between 1970s and the 2000s. Our central estimate of the elasticity of scrappage with respect to vehicle prices is -0.4, which is substantially different than values adopted in simulation models. These estimates imply that many policies aimed at reducing gasoline consumption, including Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and gasoline taxes may produce changes in the used vehicle market that are different than prior studies suggest. We also note that consumer scrappage behavior seems to respond more strongly to changes in vehicle price than changes in gasoline price than standard theory would predict.

Keywords: Automobiles; Scrappage; Technology Innovation; Pollution; Controls; Used Vehicles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.39.1.aben (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:enejou:v:39:y:2018:i:1:p:159-184

DOI: 10.5547/01956574.39.1.aben

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Energy Journal
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().