'The Effect of Fuel Economy Standards on Vehicle Weight Dispersion and Accident Fatalities'

The firm response to regulation is seldom as controversial as in the context of fuel economy standards, the dominant policy to reduce emissions from vehicles in the United States. It has long been argued that such standards lead to vehicle weight changes that increase accident fatalities. Using unconditional quantile regression, we are the first to document the effect of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard on vehicle weight dispersion. We find that CAFE increased dispersion, which increases fatalities, but also lower mean weight, which lowers fatalities. Removing these weight changes from 17 million accidents, we find that on net CAFE saved more than 100 lives per year. Total lives saved increase if vehicle footprint is maintained, suggesting that the new footprint based standard could improve outcomes if it preserves vehicle size while allowing for weight changes according to precedent.

Speaker: Kevin Roth, UC Irvine