npaden
Well-known member
I haven't seen a study on it, but I remember the last time fuel prices got high it for sure made a difference in the price of larger vehicles.I think that's fair, but you are a pretty rational guy. For most folks, I think gasoline costs are accepted as a matter of course and paying for them is an afterthought. I remember a discussion that revolved around this in a Planning class I took. The premise was, as gasoline prices rise, people will be more reluctant to build and live in places that require a more expensive commute. At the time, that hypothesis just didn't pan out and we discussed why.
I think there's a lot involved and a fair amount of moving parts. This study is now 12 years old, but I think it's the study we referenced in class:
"Recent research suggests that consumers are not very responsive to changes in the price of gasoline, at least in the short run. (Increased expenditures on gasoline have, however, reduced consumers’ saving, real income growth, and probably other forms of consumption.)3 For a variety of reasons, consumers are currently only about one-fifth as responsive to short-run changes in gasoline prices as they were several decades ago. That decline in sensitivity has been attributed to growth in real income, which has rendered gasoline a smaller share of consumers’ purchases from disposable income"
I think that last sentence is what I was getting at, though I admit everyone may have unique situations in terms of the amount of miles they are putting on, or actual financial constraints. Another way I'd put it, if the decision were: you can forgo your hunting trip, or you can forgo putting any money in retirement for two months, or your gonna have to deal with a nasty CC bill in January, I'll see you in the woods.