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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Economics

Selected Works

Don Fullerton

Vehicle emissions

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Vehicle Choices, Miles Driven, And Pollution Policies, Ye Feng, Don Fullerton, Li Gan Jul 2013

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 …


Tax And Subsidy Combinations For The Control Of Car Pollution, Don Fullerton, Sarah West Dec 2009

Tax And Subsidy Combinations For The Control Of Car Pollution, Don Fullerton, Sarah West

Don Fullerton

Despite technological advances, an individual car’s emissions still cannot be measured reliably enough to impose a Pigovian tax. This paper explores alternative market incentives that could be used instead. We solve for second-best combinations of uniform taxes on gasoline, engine size, and vehicle age. For 1,261 individuals and cars in the 1994 Consumer Expenditure Survey, we record the car’s model, year, and number of cylinders. We then seek a corresponding car in data from the California Air Resources Board that shows the car’s engine size, fuel efficiency, and emissions per mile. We calculate the welfare improvement from a zero-tax scenario …


Combinations Of Instruments To Achieve Low-Carbon Vehicle-Miles, Don Fullerton, Daniel Karney Dec 2009

Combinations Of Instruments To Achieve Low-Carbon Vehicle-Miles, Don Fullerton, Daniel Karney

Don Fullerton

In cases where the first-best carbon tax and a reasonable second-best gasoline tax are unavailable, this paper demonstrates how alternative combinations of instruments can form economically-sound, environmentally-motivated policies for substantial reductions in vehicle carbon emissions. In order to implement alternative approaches successfully, our point is that policymakers may need to take a holistic approach when designing policy. This holistic approach would recognise that policies to reduce carbon emissions must be politically feasible, and that all sectors of the economy generate carbon emissions. A holistic approach would not focus just on one method of abatement, like encouraging low-carbon vehicle technologies, but …