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Gasoline consumption in Saudi Arabia: an analysis of consumer attitudes and perceptions using microsurvey data
Author(s) -
AlSahlawi Mohammad,
Miah Fazlul,
AlTiti Omar
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
opec energy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1753-0237
pISSN - 1753-0229
DOI - 10.1111/opec.12135
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , gasoline , subsidy , economics , government (linguistics) , survey data collection , nationality , demographic economics , household income , agricultural economics , geography , engineering , statistics , social science , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , archaeology , immigration , sociology , market economy , waste management
The study analyses gasoline consumption behaviour by ordinary consumers in Saudi Arabia using household‐level disaggregated survey data. We applied parametric methods to test 10 hypotheses related to gasoline consumption. To collect the data, we surveyed 1862 households across 13 regions of the country. The empirical results show that gasoline consumption is significantly affected by age, nationality, education, employment characteristics, household size, vehicle engine size, gasoline price, household location and consumers’ concern about future price change, but it is not affected by income. We also find that consumption varies among different groups within each factor and that many differences are statistically significant. The importance and contribution of this study stem from the fact that there is no research on gasoline demand using household‐level disaggregated survey data in Saudi Arabia, and thus our results should be useful to policymakers. Our study is particularly timely considering that the government is trying to move away from subsidy in the oil sector.