Development and trends of China's automobile market: Evidence from urban household ownership of cars, bicycles, motorcycles and motorbikes

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This paper first examines the development, trends, and regional disparities of China's automobile production and ownership, then presents a quantitative analysis of urban household ownership of cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and motorbikes (similar to European mopeds), and finally discusses the potential global impacts of China's emerging automobile market. While the trend analysis of the most recently available time-series data indicates that both production and demand for automobiles, especially cars, in China have increased rapidly since the late 1990s and that China is likely to remain the world's largest or second largest national automobile market, demand analysis using the urban household survey data by income groups from 1997 to 2008 suggests that the ownership of cars is most elastic with respect to real disposable income, followed by motorbikes and motorcycles, and that the ownership of bicycles has shown a negative but insignificant response to income changes. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.