Over the past quarter century the United States` dependence on oil has cost its economy on the order of $5 trillion. Oil dependence is defined as economically significant consumption of oil, given price inelastic demand in the short and long run and given the ability of the OPEC cartel to use...

Consumption surveys often record zero purchases of a good because of a short observation window. Only mean consumption rates can then be inferred. We show that propensity scores can be used to estimate each unit's consumption rate, revealing the distribution. We demonstrate the method using the...