Many consumers are keenly aware of gasoline prices, and consumer responses to gasoline prices have been well studied. In this paper, by contrast, we investigate how gasoline prices affect the automobile industry: manufacturers and dealerships. We estimate how changes in gasoline prices affect...

Using the most comprehensive publicly available data, we examine long-run changes in scrappage patterns in passenger cars and light trucks in the United States between 1969 and 1999. We find that the expected lifetime for passenger cars has increased from 12.5 to 14 years between 1969 and 1999....