Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Vehicle Choices, Miles Driven, And Pollution Policies, Ye Feng, Don Fullerton, Li Gan

Don Fullerton

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 …