We estimate the income and fuel price elasticities of private car vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) using fixed effects on registry micro panel data covering all Swedish households from 1999 to 2018. Such registry data, covering all individuals and cars in the country, are unique to Nordic countries and are comprehensive enough to allow fine segmentation of the population by both income groups and several municipality types. To address potential endogeneity arising if employees receive a wage compensation for long commutes, we apply the temporal changes in earned income tax credits as an instrumental variable. We find lower income and price elasticities (in absolute value) in the large cities, and larger elasticities in suburbs, other cities and in rural areas. We also find that the elasticities decrease with income, excluding the lowest income quartile, having the lowest elasticities. Specifically, we show theoretically and empirically that because the income elasticity varies considerably along the income distribution, the resulting income elasticity depends heavily on how the estimator assigns weight to different income groups, unless the specification explicitly allows for variation in the impact of income on VKT. Moreover, the impact of an income increase depends on to whom the income increase accrues to. For a uniform income increase, 0.2 is the preferred income elasticity. Our preferred long-run fuel price elasticity is −0.53. The short-run elasticities are lower. These elasticities apply to the full population and not only to car owners or drivers.

中文翻译：

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微面板数据上汽车使用的收入和燃油价格弹性


我们利用 1999 年至 2018 年涵盖所有瑞典家庭的登记微型面板数据的固定效应来估计私家车车辆行驶公里数 (VKT) 的收入和燃油价格弹性。此类登记数据涵盖该国所有个人和汽车，是瑞典独有的。北欧国家足够全面，可以按收入群体和几种城市类型对人口进行精细细分。为了解决员工因长途通勤获得工资补偿而产生的潜在内生性，我们将所得税抵免的时间变化作为工具变量。我们发现大城市的收入和价格弹性（绝对值）较低，而郊区、其他城市和农村地区的弹性较大。我们还发现，弹性随着收入的增加而降低，不包括收入最低的四分位数，其弹性最低。具体来说，我们从理论上和经验上表明，由于收入弹性沿着收入分布变化很大，因此所得的收入弹性在很大程度上取决于估计者如何为不同收入群体分配权重，除非规范明确允许收入对 VKT 影响的变化。此外，收入增加的影响取决于收入增加的受益者。对于统一的收入增长，0.2 是首选的收入弹性。我们首选的长期燃料价格弹性为-0.53。短期弹性较低。这些弹性适用于全体人口，而不仅仅是车主或司机。