This case provides background material about the takeover attempt of one of the world's largest automobile manufacturers, Volkswagen, by the small sports car manufacturer, Porsche. It covers the period from spring 2005 through August 2009. This drama ends in a complete reversal, the acquisition...

As the United States tax system continues to grapple with how to tax workers in the gig economy, it confronts a number of questions about the nature and composition of the sector as well as the tax issues confronted by its participants. Many of these questions have proven difficult to answer due...

Though many people consider Portland, Oregon, a model of 21st-century urban planning, the region's integrated land-use and transportation plans have greatly reduced the area's livability. To halt urban sprawl and reduce people's dependence on the automobile, Portland's plans use an urban-growth...

Policymakers around the globe have opted for high levels of regulation of the market for vehicle safety and declared many vehicle safety systems as mandatory for new cars. In this paper we argue that the delivered justifications for these policies are at least questionable. We add a completely...

We analyze optimal policy when consumers of energy-using durables undervalue energy costs relative to their private optima. First, there is an Internality Dividend from Externality Taxes: aside from reducing externalities, they also offset distortions from underinvestment in energy efficiency....

In transportation systems with unpriced congestion, allowing single-occupant low-emission vehicles in high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to encourage their adoption exacerbates congestion costs for carpoolers. The resulting welfare effects of the policy are negative, with environmental benefits...

This paper employs an empirically estimated model to study the equilibrium effects of an increase in the US corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. I identify and model heterogeneity across firms and find that the profit impacts of CAFE fall almost entirely on domestic producers. The...

Fuel economy standards change the composition of the vehicle fleet, influencing accident safety. The direction and size of the effect depend on the combination of vehicles in the fleet. I provide empirical estimates of vehicle safety across classes, accounting for unobserved driving behavior and...

This paper empirically assesses the impact of a discontinuous tax schedule on prices, markups and product assortment in the Brazilian automobile industry. To this end, I estimate a structural, equilibrium model of demand and supply for over a hundred different models and engine sizes of...

The greening of organizational transportation fleets, especially trucks and automobiles, has gained increasing attention by companies in a variety of industrial sectors. The reasons for this concern and attention are due to regulatory and competitive pressures, but also increasing costs of...