The Department of Economics Recruiting Seminar presents

"Clunkers or Junkers? Adverse Selection in a Vehicle Retirement Program"
with Ryan Sandler, UC Davis
                                 
Friday, February 10, 2012
2:00-3:30 p.m.
Social Science Plaza A, Room 3132

Vehicle retirement programs have become popular tools of public policy for reducing pollution. The efficacy of these programs is difficult to measure, as it is difficult to tell how much a vehicle would have polluted otherwise. Sandler estimates that counter-factual using data from a long-running local program in California. He utilizes the universe of emissions inspections from California's Smog Check program to construct vehicle usage histories of retired cars and similar vehicles which did not retire early. He finds that the program's cost-effectiveness steadily declined over time because of the depreciation of the vehicle fleet, and because of adverse selection.

For further information, please contact Gloria Simpson, simpsong@uci.edu.