Quality-Based Price Discrimination and Tax Incidence: Evidence from Gasoline and Diesel Cars
利用欧洲国家汽油车和柴油车的税收差异，分析厂商基于消费者年里程的垄断性价格歧视，发现价格差异中75%至90%来自加价差异，税收归宿主要受燃油税影响。
The existing tax policies towards gasoline and diesel cars in European countries provide a unique opportunity to analyze quality-based price discrimination and the implied tax incidence.We develop an econometric framework for the demand and pricing of gasoline and diesel cars.Consumers choose the type of engine based on their annual mileage; prices are set by the manufacturers.Our empirical results show that the relative pricing of gasoline and diesel cars is consistent with price discrimination of a monopolistic type, effectively segmenting low mileage from high mileage consumers.On average, about 75 to 90 percent of the price differentials between gasoline and diesel cars can be explained by markup differences.The implied tax incidence is especially based on fuel taxes and less so on annual car taxes.Implications for the effectiveness of tax policy are drawn.