Bidding to drive: Car license auction policy in Shanghai and its public acceptance
By Xiaojie Chen, Jinhuan Zhao. 2013
112 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Increased automobile ownership and use in China over the last two decades has increased energy consumption, worsened air pollution, and exacerbated congestion. However, the countrywide growth in car ownership conceals great variation among cities. For example, Shanghai and Beijing each had about 2 million motor vehicles in 2004, but by 2010, Beijing had 4.8 million motor vehicles whereas Shanghai had only 3.1 million. Among the factors contributing to this divergence is Shanghai’s vehicle control policy, which uses monthly license auctions to limit the number of new cars. The policy appears to be effective: in addition to dampening growth in car ownership, it generates annual revenues up to 5 billion CNY (800 million USD). But, despite these apparent successes, the degree to which the public accepts this policy is unknown. This study surveys 524 employees at nine Shanghai companies to investigate the policy acceptance of Shanghai’s license auction by the working population, and the factors that contribute to that acceptance: Perceived policy effectiveness, affordability, equity concerns, and implementation. Respondents perceive the policy to be effective, but are moderately negative towards the policy nonetheless. However, they expect that others accept the policy more than they do. Respondents also hold consistently negative perceptions about the affordability of the license, the effects on equity, and the implementation process. Revenue usage is not seen as transparent, which is exacerbated by a perception that government vehicles enjoy advantages in obtaining a license, issues with the bidding process and technology, and difficulties in obtaining information about the auction policy. Nevertheless, respondents believe that license auctions and congestion charges are more effective and acceptable than parking charges and fuel taxes. To improve public acceptability of the policy, we make five recommendations: Transparency in revenue usage; transparency in government vehicle licensing and use, categorising licenses by vehicle type, implementation and technology improvements to increase bidding convenience, and policies that restrict vehicle usage in congested locations.
Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Transportation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/70e8143f8bf0142d129a0f1e7b7c4de6fdc5385f
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Economics and Econometrics
In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
In Transportation
Citations in the corpus
- The impact of service and government-policy attributes on consumer preferences for electric vehicles in China (2019, background): “major cities in China have imposed vehicle-licensing regulations such as the lottery system for allocating vehicle license plates in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou and the auction process in Shanghai, which are designed to limit the uptake of private petrol cars in these cities (Chen and ”
- Vehicle Ownership Analysis Based on GDP per Capita in China: 1963–2050 (2014, background): “As a result, Shanghai has promulgated a vehicle control policy, which uses monthly license auctions to limit the number of new cars [23]; (2) Beijing’s Vehicle Lottery.”