Consumer Valuation of Fuel Costs and Tax Policy: Evidence from the European Car Market

To what extent do car buyers undervalue future fuel costs, and what does this imply for tax policy? To address both questions, we show it is crucial to account for consumer mileage heterogeneity. We use product-level data for a panel of European countries and exploit fuel cost variation by engine. Despite a modest undervaluation of fuel costs, fuel taxes are more effective in reducing fuel usage than product taxes. They also perform better in …