Previous literature finds that consumers tend to undervalue discounted future energy costs in their purchase decisions for energy-using durables. We argue that this finding could result from ignoring consumer heterogeneity in empirical analyses as opposed to true undervaluation. In the context...

Previous literature finds that consumers tend to undervalue discounted future energy costs in their purchase decisions for energy-using durables. We argue that this finding could result from ignoring consumer heterogeneity in empirical analyses as opposed to true undervaluation. In the context...

This paper examines the unexplored link between the prevalence of overweight and obesity and vehicle demand in the United States. Exploring annual sales data of new passenger vehicles at the model level in 48 U.S. counties from 1999 to 2005, we find that new vehicles demanded by consumers are...

The increasing market share of light trucks in the U.S. in recent years has been characterized as an “arms race” where individual purchase of light trucks for better self-protection in collisions nevertheless leads to worse traffic safety for the society. This paper investigates the...

The efficiency of resource allocation is often analyzed in static frameworks with a focus on the cross-sectional heterogeneity in the willingness to pay among users. When the resource is durable in nature, the temporal heterogeneity could be important in assessing the efficiency properties of...

Severe traffic congestion is ubiquitous in large urban centers, especially those in middle-income countries and emerging markets. Using road pricing as the first-best policy to address congestion has been drawing increased attention from policy makers. This paper provides the first causal...

This paper measures the impact of housing price changes on household consumption at the city level using the universe of credit and debit card transactions in China from 2011 to 2013. In sharp contrast to the literature on the U.S. housing market, our analysis shows a large and negative housing...

This study documents the presence of local protectionism and quantifies its impacts on market competition and social welfare in the context of China's automobile market. A salient feature of China's auto market is that vehicle models by joint ventures (JVs) and especially state-owned enterprises...

Exploiting a rich data set of passenger vehicle registrations in twenty U.S. metropolitan statistical areas from 1997 to 2005, we examine the effects of gasoline prices on the automotive fleet's composition. We find that high gasoline prices affect fleet fuel economy through two channels: (1)...

We use county-level panel data to estimate the long-run effect of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution on mortality in China. Causal inference relies on changes in local pollution correlated with demand shocks from export destinations amid the global economic crisis during the late 2000s....