Kenneth Gillingham

A Dynamic Model of Vehicle Ownership, Type Choice and Usage

In a recent paper, Kenneth Gillingham developed an estimable structural microeconometric model of car choice and usage that features endogenous equilibrium prices on the used-car market. Households buy and sell cars in the market and car owners choose how much to drive their car in a finite-horizon model. He also explicitly models the choice between scrapping the car or selling it on the used-car market using full-population Danish register data on car ownership, driving and demographics for the period 1996–2009, covering all Danish households and cars. The model provides predictions on tax revenue, fuel use, emissions, the lifetime of vehicles as well as the composition of types and ages of cars in the future.

Mr Gillingham's planned research agenda while at CESifo is to continue his research projects at the intersection of energy economics, urban economics and transportation. These projects examine the relationships between urban form, driving and emissions, as well as how these relationships are mediated by policy. He uses datasets that include the behaviour of millions of drivers and detailed data on the characteristics of the vehicle fleet. The analyses cover places ranging from Denmark to Massachusetts and California. Specific policies of interest include fuel economy standards, fuel taxes and incentives for alternative fuel vehicles.

Mr Gillingham is Assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Department of Economics and School of Management of Yale University. He is also NBER Faculty Research Fellow. His previous affiliations include White House Council of Economic Advisers and Resources for the Future. He is on the editorial boards of the Energy Journal and Energy Efficiency. His PhD is from Stanford University in Management Science & Engineering and Economics.