Nonparametric Estimation of Household Gasoline Demand in Japan

我们通过内务和交通部进行的家庭收入和支出调查来估计日本的汽油需求。我们将估计的价格和收入弹性与先前的研究进行比较，包括Hausman和Newey (1995)， Schmalensee和Stoker (1999)， Yatchew和No（2001）。与这些研究相比，我们的数据集有两个主要优势，即：(1)超过20年的长样本周期，(2)实际收入值而不是收入类别的可用性。这使我们能够进一步了解文献中未研究的汽油需求行为。其中一个见解是关于汽油购买的跨期方面。与其他非耐用品不同，汽油可能会作为库存大量储存。正如Hendel和Nevo（2002）所指出的那样，忽略库存方面的变量必然会对价格弹性的估计产生偏差。我们的库存变量在估计中是显著的，这意味着以前文献中没有库存变量的弹性可能是有偏差的。考虑库存效应是很重要的，特别是在汽油市场，价格变化反映了消费者和加油站之间的战略关系(Noel （2003)， Inoue和Shimoji(2005)）。我们的研究结果证明了动态购买行为的重要性，这在静态供需分析中是无法捕捉到的。本文还提出了若干环境政策影响。

We estimate the gasoline demand in Japan by using the Family Income and Expenditure Survey conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. We compare the estimated price and income elasticities with the ones in the previous studies including Hausman and Newey (1995), Schmalensee and Stoker (1999), and Yatchew and No (2001). Compared with these studies, our data set has two major advantages, i.e., (1) the long sample periods of more than 20 years, and (2) availability of the actual income values rather than income classes. These enable us to add further insights on the gasoline demand behavior not examined in the literature.One of the insights is on the intertemporal aspect of gasoline purchase. In contrast to other non-durables, gasoline is likely to be stored in a sizable amount as inventories. As pointed out by Hendel and Nevo (2002), omitting the stock-aspect variables necessarily biases the estimates of price elasticities. Our stock variables are significant in the estimation, which implies that the elasticities in the previous literature without inventory variables are possibly biased.Considering the stock effects is important especially in the gasoline market where the price variations reflect the strategic relationship between consumers and gasoline stations (Noel (2003), Inoue and Shimoji (2005)). Our results demonstrate the importance of dynamic purchase behavior, which cannot be captured in the static supply-demand analysis.Several environmental policy implications are also presented in the paper.