Winners and losers: the distributional effects of the French feebate on the automobile market

I analyze the distributional effects of an environmental policy in the new automobile market: the French feebate. I quantify the monetary and environmental gains and losses that are due to this new automobile purchase tax/subsidy across consumers. I develop and estimate a structural model of the demand and supply for new cars that features a high level of heterogeneity in consumers' preferences. By exploiting data on car sales at the municipality level, I identify the heterogeneity parameters through the correlation that exists between household characteristics and car attributes across municipalities. I simulate the market equilibrium without the feebate to quantify the causal welfare and environmental effects of the feebate. The policy reduces average carbon emissions but increases the emissions of all the local pollutants, and the effects are heterogeneous across consumers, car manufacturers and pollutants. The performance of the feebate is very high for consumer surplus maximization, but there is room to increase manufacturers' profits and limit the emissions of local pollutants

Winners and losers: the distributional effects of the French feebate on the automobile market

I analyze the distributional effects of an environmental policy in the new automobile market: the French feebate. I quantify the monetary and environmental gains and losses that are due to this new automobile purchase tax/subsidy across consumers. I develop and estimate a structural model of the demand and supply for new cars that features a high level of heterogeneity in consumers' preferences. By exploiting data on car sales at the municipality level, I identify the heterogeneity parameters through the correlation that exists between household characteristics and car attributes across municipalities. I simulate the market equilibrium without the feebate to quantify the causal welfare and environmental effects of the feebate. The policy reduces average carbon emissions but increases the emissions of all the local pollutants, and the effects are heterogeneous across consumers, car manufacturers and pollutants. The performance of the feebate is very high for consumer surplus maximization, but there is room to increase manufacturers' profits and limit the emissions of local pollutants

The Effect of Public Policies on Consumers' Preferences: Lessons from the French Automobile Market

In this paper, we investigate whether French consumers have modified their preferences towards environmentally-friendly vehicles between 2003 and 2008. We estimate a model of demand for automobiles incorporating both consumers' heterogeneity and CO2 emissions of the vehicles. Our results show that there has been a shift in preferences towards low-emitting cars, with an average increase of 367 euros of the willingness to pay for a reduction of 10 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. We also stress a large heterogeneity in the evolution of preferences between consumers. Rich and young people are more sensitive to environmental issues, and our results are in line with votes for the green party at the presidential elections. We relate these changes with two environmental policies that were introduced at these times, namely the obligation of indicating energy labels by the end of 2005 and a feebate based on CO2 emissions of new vehicles in 2008. Our results suggest that such policies have been efficient tools to shift consumers utility towards environmentally-friendly goods, the shift in preferences accounting for 20% of the overall decrease in average CO2 emissions of new cars on the period

To Rebate or Not to Rebate: Fuel Economy Standards vs. Feebates?

We compare the welfare effects in equilibrium of two environmental regulations that aim at increasing the new cars fleet’s average fuel efficiency: the fuel economy standards and the feebate policies. Maintaining the same environmental benefit and tax revenue, we simulate the implementation of each policy in France and the United States. Standard-type policies have larger negative welfare effects, up to 3.2 times those from the feebate. Effects on manufacturers are heterogeneous: some are better of under the standard regulation. The addition of a market to trade levels of fuel efficiency dominates the simple standard regulation but not always the feebate. We also consider the attribute-based standard, technological improvements, and the equivalence with fuel taxes as extensions

To Rebate or Not to Rebate: Fuel Economy Standards vs. Feebates?

We compare the welfare effects in equilibrium of two environmental regulations that aim at increasing the new cars fleet’s average fuel efficiency: the fuel economy standards and the feebate policies. Maintaining the same environmental benefit and tax revenue, we simulate the implementation of each policy in France and the United States. Standard-type policies have larger negative welfare effects, up to 3.2 times those from the feebate. Effects on manufacturers are heterogeneous: some are better of under the standard regulation. The addition of a market to trade levels of fuel efficiency dominates the simple standard regulation but not always the feebate. We also consider the attribute-based standard, technological improvements, and the equivalence with fuel taxes as extensions

Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium with Unobserved Price Discrimination

In markets where sellers are able to price discriminate, individuals pay different prices that may be unobserved by the econometrician. This paper considers the structural estimation of a demand and supply model à la Berry et al. (1995) with such price discrimination and limited information on prices taking the form of, e.g., observing list prices from catalogues or average prices. Within this framework, identification is achieved by using supply-side conditions, provided that the marginal costs of producing and selling the goods do not depend on the characteristics of the buyers. The model can be estimated by GMM using a nested fixed point algorithm that extends BLP’s algorithm to our setting. We apply our methodology to estimate the demand and supply in the French new automobile market. Our results suggest that discounting arising from price discrimination is important. The average discount is estimated to be 9.6%, with large variation depending on buyers’ characteristics and cars’ specifications. Our results are consistent with other evidence on transaction prices in France

The Welfare Consequences of Urban Traffic Regulations

We develop a structural model to represent individual transportation decisions, the equilibrium road traffic levels, and speeds inside a city. The model is micro-founded and incorporates a high level of heterogeneity: individuals differ in access to transportation modes, values of travel time, and schedule constraints; road congestion technologies vary within the city. We apply our model to the Paris metropolitan area and estimate the model parameters from publicly available data. We predict the road traffic equilibria under driving restrictions and road tolls and measure the policy consequences on the different welfare components: individual surplus, tax revenues, and cost of emissions

Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium with Unobserved Price Discrimination

This paper deals with the estimation of structural models of demand and supply with incomplete information on prices. When the seller is able to price discriminate, or the buyer to bargain, individuals pay different prices that are usually not collected in the data. This paper explores a method to estimate the supply and demand models jointly when only posted prices are observed. We consider that heterogenous transaction prices occur due to price discrimination by firms on observable characteristics of consumers. Within this framework, the identification is secured by (i) supposing that at least one group of individuals does pay the posted prices and (ii) assuming that the marginal costs of producing and selling the goods does not depend on the characteristics of the buyers. This methodology is applied to estimate the demand in the new automobile market in France. Results suggest that discounting arising from price discrimination is important. The average discount is estimated to be 5.2%, with large variation according to the buyers’ characteristics. Our results are in line with discounts generally observed in European and American automobile markets

Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium with Unobserved Price Discrimination

This paper deals with the estimation of structural models of demand and supply with incomplete information on prices. When the seller is able to price discriminate, or the buyer to bargain, individuals pay different prices that are usually not collected in the data. This paper explores a method to estimate the supply and demand models jointly when only posted prices are observed. We consider that heterogenous transaction prices occur due to price discrimination by firms on observable characteristics of consumers. Within this framework, the identification is secured by (i) supposing that at least one group of individuals does pay the posted prices and (ii) assuming that the marginal costs of producing and selling the goods does not depend on the characteristics of the buyers. This methodology is applied to estimate the demand in the new automobile market in France. Results suggest that discounting arising from price discrimination is important. The average discount is estimated to be 5.2%, with large variation according to the buyers’ characteristics. Our results are in line with discounts generally observed in European and American automobile markets

Winners and Losers: The Distributional Effects of the French Feebate on the Automobile Market

I quantify the welfare and environmental gains and losses from a policy establishing an environmental tax/subsidy for new cars in France in 2008. I estimate a structural model of demand and supply that features heterogeneity in consumer preferences to go beyond the average policy effects and analyse distributional aspects. The policy reduces average carbon emissions by 1.6% at the cost of additional emissions of local pollutants. The regulation favours middle-income individuals but has redistributive effects when combined with a tax that is proportional to income. Moreover, local pollutant emissions increase least in poor and rural areas, suggesting another redistribution channel