@article{ref1,
title="Vehicle ownership and usage charges",
journal="Transport policy",
year="2010",
author="Muthukrishnan, Subhashini",
volume="17",
number="6",
pages="398-408",
abstract="We present a simple model to study the welfare effects of a shift from ownership to usage taxes for cars. We consider a model in which a single representative consumer derives utility from consuming two goods--consumption of motor vehicle kilometers, and an aggregate consumption good treated as numeraire. We characterize the optimal consumption of car kilometers by a representative car user and find that a shift from ownership towards usage taxes is not necessarily welfare-improving: while a revenue-neutral shift makes the representative car user worse off; a utility-neutral shift leads to a significant loss of revenue to the government. An empirical analysis based on Singapore data is also consistent with our theoretical results.<p />",
language="en",
issn="0967-070X",
doi="10.1016/j.tranpol.2010.04.007",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2010.04.007"
}