Panel:
Effectiveness of Alternative Public Policies to Reduce Emissions By the Transportation Sector
(Natural Resource Security, Energy and Environmental Policy)
Saturday, November 5, 2016: 1:45 PM-3:15 PM
Dupont (Washington Hilton)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Panel Organizers: Antonio M. Bento, University of Southern California
Panel Chairs: Kevin Roth, University of California, Irvine
Discussants: Kevin Roth, University of California, Irvine and Joshua Linn, Resources for the Future
This panel brings together leading scholars that examine the effects of various public policies aimed at controlling emissions from the transportation sector. In most developed countries, the transportation sector is a major source of local policy as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Countries have implemented a varied of policies to create incentives for the introduction of more fuel efficient vehicles and heavy duty trucks. Many European countries, including Switzerland, have introduced regional circulation taxed that penalizing highly polluting vehicles. At the federal level, both in Europe and the United States, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards have been the leading instrument. However, CAFE standards don’t come free of criticism. A major concern relates to the safety impacts of tightening of these standards. Another concern is that, by lowering the cost of operating vehicles and heavy trucks per mile, increases in standards may lead to overall increases in vehicle miles traveled – the so-called rebound effect. This session examines several of these issues, and provide a state of the art of this important body of research.
The first paper examines the effects of CAFE Standards on safety; the second, examines circulation taxes in Switzerland, and the third quantifies the rebound effect for heavy-duty trucks.
