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Three Essays in Energy and Environmental Economics
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- Author / Creator
- Li, Hanxiao
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Motor vehicle emissions constitute a major source of local air pollution in the United States. The U.S. government stipulated motor fuel content regulations and required that cleaner fuels be adopted, instead of conventional gasoline, in certain pollution non-attainment areas. To determine the environmental effects of these regulations, the emissions levels that would have been reduced in the regulated areas in the absence of the regulations need to be known. However, this counter-factual does not exist. The difference-in-difference strategy employed in the current study takes the reductions in the emissions of control counties as a surrogate for the counter-factual of the regulated areas. I find that the introduction of gasoline content regulations results in a dramatic reduction in the pollution from on-road vehicles but not from off-road engines and vehicles, during the period 1990 to 2002. Therefore, the less affected pollution from the off-road sources could nullify the environmental benefits by adopting clean fuels. This may be an additional explanation for why local air quality did not improve though cleaner fuels were prescribed to certain polluted areas.
An accelerated vehicle retirement program was also adopted by the U.S. government to address vehicle air pollution. The U.S. “Cash for Clunkers” (CARS) program offered incentive to participants who retired their current vehicles and purchased a new vehicle, provided that certain requirements on fuel economy improvements and vehicle categories were satisfied. I evaluate the pollution-reduction effects of this program. Based on the rich set of household and vehicle characteristics contained in the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data, an instrumental variable regression is used to predict the travel demand for the CARS retried and replacement vehicles and then their associated pollution. This study finds that the CARS program potentially does not result in a reduction of CO2 emissions and an environmental gain, even with taking into account its effects on the emissions of criteria pollutants.
The U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards have imposed increasingly stringent requirements on vehicle fuel economy. The improvement of fuel efficiency is motivated by the desire to reduce fuel consumption and vehicle carbon emissions. However, the improved fuel efficiency leads to a reduced per-mile cost of driving and thus additional travel demand, which is a direct rebound or “take back” effect, because it may offset the potential fuel savings that otherwise would be obtained. This study empirically identifies the rebound effect by estimating a joint model, which determinines vehicle miles and fuel efficiency simultaneously. The current study finds no evidence of the rebound effect and concludes that the potential negative effect resulting from the fuel efficiency improvement should not be a concern.
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2015
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.