Quality-based price discrimination and tax incidence: evidence from gasoline and diesel cars

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Verboven, F
• 署名单位: Universite Catholique Louvain; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.2307/3087434
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 275-297
• 关键词: american automobile-industry; product line rivalry; air-pollution; MARKET; differentiation; COMPETITION; abatement

摘要

The existing tax policies toward gasoline and diesel cars in European countries provide a unique opportunity to analyze quality-based price discrimination and the implied tax incidence. In my econometric framework, consumers choose the type of engine based on their annual mileage; prices are set by the manufacturers. The relative Pricing of gasoline and diesel cars appears to be consistent with monopolistic price discrimination, effectively segmenting low-mileage from high-mileage consumers, On average, about 75% to 90% of the price differentials between gasoline and diesel cars can be explained by markup differences. I draw implications for the effectiveness and the revenue effects of tax policy.