Vehicle choices, miles driven and pollution policies

Description

"Mobile sources contribute large percentages of each pollutant, but technology is not yet available to measure and tax emissions from each vehicle. We build a behavioral model of household choices about vehicles and miles traveled. The ideal-but-unavailable emissions tax would encourage drivers to abate emissions through many behaviors, some of which involve market transactions that can be observed for feasible market incentives (such as a gas tax, subsidy to new cars, or tax by vehicle type). Our model can calculate behavioral effects of each such price and thus calculate car choices, miles, and emissions.A nested logit structure is used to model discrete choices among different vehicle bundles. We also consider continuous choices of miles driven and the age of each vehicle. We propose a consistent estimation method for both discrete and continuous demands in one step, to capture the interactive effects of simultaneous decisions. Results are compared with those of the traditional sequential estimation procedure"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

Subjects

Series Statement

• NBER working paper series -- working paper 11553.
• Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 11553.

Links

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Other Editions

• Vehicle choices, miles driven and pollution policiesNational Bureau of Economic Research2005-01-01
• Vehicle choices, miles driven, and pollution policiesElectronic resourceNational Bureau of Economic Research2005-01-01