How Far for a Buck? Tax Differences and the Location of Retail Gasoline Activity in Southeast Chicagoland
利用伊利诺伊州北部和印第安纳州相邻地区的汽油和香烟税差异，研究消费者在价格和出行距离之间的权衡，发现芝加哥消费者每多开一英里愿意接受每加仑0.065至0.084美元的价差，高税收地区因此损失约40%的加油站容量。
We exploit variation in gasoline and cigarettes taxes in adjacent political jurisdictions for northern Illinois and Indiana to examine consumers' trade-off between prices and travel. We develop a model that relates activity in the retail gasoline industry around the tax borders to consumer locations. Our results indicate that the willingness of a typical Chicagoland consumer to travel an additional mile to buy gasoline corresponds to about $0.065 to $0.084 per gallon. According to our estimates, the observed area of Chicago, the jurisdiction with the highest taxes, is missing approximately 40% of the capacity that would exist were taxes equalized. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.