dlakelan (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dlakelan) wrote,@ 2008-06-19 13:52:00 |
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Amazingly bad reporting on gas prices
I'm bored with people honking on high gas prices on the radio and internet and soforth. No-one ever analyzes the data correctly so it's just all sound and fury. Sure it's been going up rapidly, but how big a fraction of people's income is gas cost?
The question led me to produce my own analysis...
You shouldn't deflate gas prices with CPI because CPI has all kinds of screwy relationships with fuel and energy prices. The main question is what fraction of average income is the gas we use?
The graph shows the cost of 500 gallons of gas (a good order of magnitude of the amount we use in a year on short commutes in a decent commuter car) as a fraction of per capita gdp, both in nominal dollars. Spline interpolated.
If you like you can see the data and script used to generate the graph.
Sources revealed:
Population data from wikipedia
GDP from bea.gov
Gas prices from some helpful dude on the internet I'm using his usa average prices..
The round dot is at $4.50 on 6/16/2008, which is close to the local price in LA.
This curve doesn't take into account increases in fuel efficiency, or reduction in pollution (an externality cost not fully included in the dollars/gal). So those effects should make the graph even less dire in some sense.
I'm bored with people honking on high gas prices on the radio and internet and soforth. No-one ever analyzes the data correctly so it's just all sound and fury. Sure it's been going up rapidly, but how big a fraction of people's income is gas cost?
The question led me to produce my own analysis...
You shouldn't deflate gas prices with CPI because CPI has all kinds of screwy relationships with fuel and energy prices. The main question is what fraction of average income is the gas we use?
The graph shows the cost of 500 gallons of gas (a good order of magnitude of the amount we use in a year on short commutes in a decent commuter car) as a fraction of per capita gdp, both in nominal dollars. Spline interpolated.
If you like you can see the data and script used to generate the graph.
Sources revealed:
Population data from wikipedia
GDP from bea.gov
Gas prices from some helpful dude on the internet I'm using his usa average prices..
The round dot is at $4.50 on 6/16/2008, which is close to the local price in LA.
This curve doesn't take into account increases in fuel efficiency, or reduction in pollution (an externality cost not fully included in the dollars/gal). So those effects should make the graph even less dire in some sense.
