Abstract
The durability of the transportation capital stock slows down the pace of decarbonization since newer vintages feature cutting-edge technology.
If older vintages were to be retired sooner, the social cost of travel would decline. This paper analyzes and explores the viability of a potential cash-for-clunkers program for the airline industry, which would help to hasten decarbonization of aviation. Focusing on US aviation, our estimation and calculations show that airlines can be induced to scrap rather than sell older planes upon retirement with a payment that is less than the forgone carbon damage.
Jan K. Brueckner is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine.
He received a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1972 and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1976, and was a long-time faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before coming to UCI in 2005. He has served as visiting professor at UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego, and has been a visiting scholar at many foreign universities. Brueckner has published extensively in the areas of urban economics, public economics, housing finance, and the economics of the airline industry, with more than 160 papers published in refereed journals. He served as editor of the Journal of Urban Economics for 16 years (1991-2007) and is currently a member of the editorial boards of 8 journals. He is a Fellow of the Regional Science Association of the Air Transport Research Society and served as president of the International Transportation Economics Association. He has also served as a consultant to the World Bank, the US Department of Transportation, many of the major airlines, and other entities.
