Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • winter 1985
  • Article
  • RAND Journal of Economics

The Nonpecuniary Costs of Automobile Emissions Standards

By: Timothy F. Bresnahan and Dennis Yao
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:19 
ShareBar

Abstract

An important component of the costs of automotive air-pollution control has been nonpecuniary: a decline in vehicle performance characteristics. This regulatory impact on what the auto industry calls "drivability" has never been quantified, although there is considerable reason to believe that it has been a major component of the costs of some of the auto emissions standards of the last decade. We develop a methodology for econometric assessment of such costs, and apply it to the automobile air pollution standards of 1972-1981. We find that these costs are important. For the first standards implemented in the 1970s, they exceeded the costs of pollution control equipment installed on the car and the costs of decreased fuel efficiency. Since then, however, advances in compliance technology have allowed increases in automobile quality so that incremental costs of recent standards are much lower than previously believed.

Keywords

Transportation; Pollutants; Cost; Standards; Performance; Quality; Auto Industry

Citation

Bresnahan, Timothy F., and Dennis Yao. "The Nonpecuniary Costs of Automobile Emissions Standards." RAND Journal of Economics 16, no. 4 (winter 1985): 437–455. ((reprinted in W. Harrington and V. McConnell (eds.) Controlling Automobile Air Pollution, 2007) Harvard users click here for full text.)
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Purchase

About The Author

Dennis A. Yao

Strategy
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • June 2020
    • Law, Culture and the Humanities

    Informing Dissent

    By: Hillary Greene and Dennis Yao
    • 2020
    • Faculty Research

    Pushed into a Crowd: Repositioning Costs, Resources, and Competition in the RTE Cereal Industry

    By: Young Hou and Dennis Yao
    • June 21, 2019
    • Science

    Government-Funded Research Increasingly Fuels Innovation

    By: Lee Fleming, Hillary Greene, Guan-Cheng Li, Matt Marx and Dennis Yao
More from the Authors
  • Informing Dissent By: Hillary Greene and Dennis Yao
  • Pushed into a Crowd: Repositioning Costs, Resources, and Competition in the RTE Cereal Industry By: Young Hou and Dennis Yao
  • Government-Funded Research Increasingly Fuels Innovation By: Lee Fleming, Hillary Greene, Guan-Cheng Li, Matt Marx and Dennis Yao
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College