Did the 1973 and 1979 gasoline price rises change consumer views about the relative quality of different cars? This question is investigated by testing the null hypothesis that imputed characteristic prices have remained constant over time. A hedonic model that takes gasoline costs into account...

We construct measures of industry performance and welfare in the U.S. car and light truck market from 1980-2018. We estimate a differentiated products demand model for this market using product level data on market shares, prices, and product characteristics, and consumer level data on...

This paper exploits the unique experiment of European market integration to investigate the relationship between integration and price convergence in international markets. Using a panel data set of car prices we examine how the process of integration has affected cross-country price dispersion...

I develop a technique useful for obtaining more precise estimates of demand and supply curves when constrained to market-level data. It augments the estimation routine with data on the average characteristics of consumers that purchase different products. I apply the technique to the automobile...

Car prices in Europe are characterized by large and persistent differences across countries. The purpose of this paper is to document and explain this price dispersion. Using a panel data set extending from 1980 to 1993, we first demonstrate two main facts concerning car prices in Europe: (1)...

Leasing contracts specify a rental rate and an option price at which the used good can be bought at the termination of the lease. This option price cannot be controlled when the car is sold. We show that in a world with symmetric information this additional control variable is useless;...

In this paper, we exploit new sources of cross-sectional data to estimate a detailed product-level demand system for new passenger vehicles. We use four data sources: on the characteristics of products, on the attributes of the U.S. population of households, on the match between the first and...

This paper studies the effects of subsidies on durable goods markets. In particular, we study a recent policy in France in which the governments of Balladur and Jupp‚ subsidized the replacement of old cars with new ones. To study this policy, we construct a dynamic stochastic discrete choice...

This paper develops new techniques for empirically analyzing demand and supply in differentiated products markets and then applies these techniques to analyze equilibrium in the U.S. automobile industry. Our primary goal is to present a framework which enables one to obtain estimates of demand...

Our purpose in this paper is to develop and estimate a model of the US automobile industry that can be used to analyze the secular and cyclical strategic markup behavior and market structure of its three major domestic producers - - GM, Ford and Chrysler. The principal novelty in this paper is...