The Rebound Effect for Passenger Vehicles

Increasingly stringent fuel economy standards will reduce per-mile driving costs and may raise vehicle miles traveled, which is referred to as the rebound effect. All previous estimates impose at least one of three behavioral assumptions: (a) fuel economy is uncorrelated with other vehicle attributes; (b) fuel economy is uncorrelated with attributes of other vehicles owned by the household; and (c) the effect of gasoline prices on vehicle miles traveled is inversely proportional to the effect of fuel economy. Relaxing these assumptions yields a large and robust rebound effect; a one percent fuel economy increase raises driving 0.2 to 0.4 percent.