Scrapping Subsidies During the Financial Crisis - Evidence from Europe

We study the effects of the car scrapping subsidies in Europe during the financial crisis. We make use of a rich data set of all car models sold in nine European countries, observed at a monthly level during 2005-2011. We employ a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the fact that different countries adopted their programs at different points in time. We find that the scrapping schemes played a strong role in stabilizing total car sales in 2009: they prevented a total car sales reduction of 17.4% in countries with schemes targeted to low emission vehicles, and they prevented a 14.8% sales reduction in countries with non-targeted schemes. In contrast, the scrapping schemes only had small environmental benefits: without the schemes, average fuel consumption of new purchased cars would have been only 1.3% higher in countries with targeted schemes and 0.5% higher in countries with non-targeted schemes. We do not find evidence of crowding out due to substitution from non-eligible to eligible cars in countries with targeted schemes. Finally, we identify some competitive and trade effects from the schemes: domestic car producers benefited at the expense of foreign competitors in the countries where the schemes were not targeted.

Leheyda, Nina and Frank Verboven (2013), Scrapping Subsidies During the Financial Crisis - Evidence from Europe, ZEW Discussion Paper No. 13-079, Mannheim.