During the summer of 2005, the Big Three U.S. automobile manufacturers offered a customer promotion that allowed customers to buy new cars at the discounted price formerly offered only to employees. The initial months of the promotion were record sales months for each of the Big Three firms,...

A supergame theoretic price-setting model of collusion is calibrated to data from the North American passenger car market before, during, and after the voluntary restraint arrangements (VRAs) with Japan. Conclusions about whether the model is consistent with the bans from the various regimes...

This paper develops unique disaggregated data for three U.S. automakers and three Japanese to assess how changes in exchange rates, factor costs, and voluntary export restraints have affected recent price competitiveness in the U.S. passenger car market. We find support for several familiar...

Did the 1973 and 1979 gasoline price rises change consumer views about the relative quality of different cars? This question is investigated by testing the null hypothesis that imputed characteristic prices have remained constant over time. A hedonic model that takes gasoline costs into account...

We construct measures of industry performance and welfare in the U.S. car and light truck market from 1980-2018. We estimate a differentiated products demand model for this market using product level data on market shares, prices, and product characteristics, and consumer level data on...

This paper studies the intermediation of auto loans through auto dealers using new and comprehensive administrative data. The arrangements between auto dealers and lenders incentivize dealers to increase loan prices. We leverage details of the corresponding contracts to demonstrate that many...

We introduce a computationally tractable dynamic equilibrium model of the automobile market where new and used cars of multiple types (e.g. makes/models) are traded by heterogeneous consumers. Prices and quantities are determined endogenously to equate supply and demand for all car types and...

We specify an equilibrium model of car ownership with private information where individuals sell and purchase new and second-hand cars over their life-cycle. Private information induces a transaction cost and distorts the market reducing the value of a car as a savings instrument. We estimate...

This paper provides evidence on the consumption effects of trade shocks by exploiting changes in US and Chinese trade policy between 2017 and 2018. The analysis uses a unique data set with the universe of new auto sales at the US county level, at a monthly frequency, and a simple...

I measure the economic impact of a trade balance constraint that was in effect during that period and I compute predicted economic outcomes for the full adoption of a customs union, as has been agreed as part of the Mercosur negotiations, separating the sometimes opposing impacts of the removal...