Title: Vehicle Import Restrictions to Curb Emissions: Evidence from Uganda” (joint work with Dorothy Nakyambadde)

Abstract: Old motor vehicles are major contributors to pollution in developing countries. In an effort to curb emissions, governments, especially in Africa, have increasingly employed import restrictions on vehicles over a certain age threshold. This paper investigates the effectiveness of such strategies in the context of a policy interventions targeting old vehicles in Uganda: an import levy increase in 2015. Combining administrative data on vehicle imports and registrations with information on domestic prices, we estimate the impact of this intervention. We find that, while the policy reduces vehicle imports in the target groups, consumers tend to substitute to old vehicles on the domestic secondary market and/or extend the useful life of currently held vehicles. These findings caution against the use of import restrictions in an effort to curb emissions, absent any regulation of old vehicles available domestically.