The number of diesel cars in Europe has grown significantly over the last three decades, a process usually known as dieselization, and they now account for nearly 40% of the cars on the road. We build on a dynamic general equilibrium model that makes a distinction between diesel motor and gasoline motor vehicles and calibrate it for main European countries. Firstly, we find that the dieselization can be explained by a change in consumer preferences paired with the productivity gains from the specialization of the European automotive industry. Secondly, the lenient tax policies in favor of diesel fuel help to explain the rebound effect in road traffic. Finally, from a normative standpoint, the model suggests that a tax discrimination based on the carbon content of each fuel (higher for diesel relative to gasoline) would actually be more effective in curbing \({\text {CO}}_{2}\) emissions rather than a tax based on fuel efficiency. Based on the existing studies, we also document that other external costs of diesel are always higher than those of gasoline, and the Pigouvian tax rates should reflect this aspect. This recommendation is radically different to the existing fuel tax design in most European countries.

中文翻译：

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欧洲的汽车使用量，$$ {\ text {CO}} _ {2} $$ CO2排放和燃油税

在过去的三十年中，欧洲柴油汽车的数量已显着增长，这一过程通常称为柴油化，如今，它们占道路上汽车的近40％。我们建立在动态一般平衡模型上，该模型在柴油发动机和汽油发动机之间进行了区分，并针对主要欧洲国家进行了校准。首先，我们发现柴油化可以用消费者喜好的变化与欧洲汽车工业专业化所带来的生产率提高来解释。其次，宽松的税收政策有利于柴油，这有助于解释道路交通的反弹效应。最后，从规范的角度来看，\（{{text {CO}} _ {2} \）排放量，而不是根据燃油效率收取的税费。根据现有研究，我们还证明，柴油的其他外部成本总是高于汽油的外部成本，而庇古税率应该反映出这一方面。该建议与大多数欧洲国家的现有燃油税设计完全不同。