The UT Energy Symposium welcomes UT Austin Economics Professor Eugenio Miravete to give a talk titled "Fuel Taxation, Emissions Policy, and Competitive Advantage in the Diffusion of European Diesel Automobiles."
Speaker bio: Eugenio Miravete is Rex G. Baker Professor of Political Economy at the University of Texas at Austin and Research Fellow at CEPR, a London based, research network of European economists. He also holds a part-time affiliation at the Centre for Competition Policy/UEA.
Professor Miravete's area of research is Empirical Industrial Organization with an edge on price discrimination. Many of his works make use of theoretical models of nonlinear pricing to develop structural estimation methods that account for asymmetry of information and strategic interactions that firms encounter when they design their tariff options. He has published in Econometrica, International Economic Review, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Mathematical Economics, Journal of Regulatory Economics, and Review of Economic Studies.
Abstract: Import tariffs have decreased significantly over the past 30 years due to a large number of economic integration agreements. We investigate whether national policies can be an effective replacement for tariffs to protect domestic industry. Our focus is the European automobile market where we show fuel taxes and vehicle emissions policy favored diesel vehicles, a technology popular with European consumers but largely offered only by domestic automakers. We estimate a discrete choice, oligopoly model of horizontally differentiated products using Spanish automobile registration data where we observe engine type. We show European automakers benefited from pro-diesel fuel taxes and a lenient NOx emissions policy to earn significant profits from diesel cars. Had regulators used policies which did not favor diesels, consumers would have shifted consumption towards gasoline-powered imports. We show both policies amounted to significant non-tariff trade policies equivalent to an import tariff between two to three times the official rate.
The UT Energy Symposium meets every Thursday during the long semesters. Come early to attend a networking session before the talk: refreshments will be served at 4:45 p.m. in the POB Connector Lobby outside the auditorium.