Regulating Untaxable Externalities: Are Vehicle Air Pollution Standards Effective and Efficient?*

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jacobsen, Mark R.; Sallee, James M.; Shapiro, Joseph S.; van Benthem, Arthur A.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjad016
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1907-1976
• 关键词: environmental-regulations; AUTOMOBILE EMISSIONS; INTERNATIONAL-TRADE; fuel-economy; HEALTH; COSTS; cars; tax; CONSEQUENCES; instruments

摘要

The world has 1.4 billion passenger vehicles. How should governments regulate their air pollution emissions? A Pigouvian tax is technologically infeasible. Most countries instead rely on exhaust standards that limit air pollution emissions per mile for new vehicles. We assess the effectiveness and efficiency of these standards, which are the centerpiece of U.S. Clean Air Act regulation of transportation, and counterfactual policies. We show that the air pollution emissions per mile of new U.S. vehicles has fallen spectacularly, by over 99%, since standards began in 1967. Several research designs with a half century of data suggest that exhaust standards have caused most of this decline. Yet exhaust standards are not cost-effective in part because they fail to encourage scrap of older vehicles, which account for the majority of emissions. To study counterfactual policies, we develop an analytical and a quantitative model of the vehicle fleet. Analysis of these models suggests that tighter exhaust standards increase social welfare and increasing registration fees on dirty vehicles yields even larger gains by accelerating scrap, although both reforms have complex effects on inequality.