2023-07-06 15:29:11
Posted Jul 6, 2023, 3:29 PM
Who benefited from the fuel rebates granted by the government? A INSEE study, published this Thursday, looks into the subject. Its findings call into question the usefulness of the device for less well-off households.
Yet they are the hardest hit by inflation. The richest households, which are also the biggest rollers, are in fact the main beneficiaries of these rebates, advances the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.
115 euro discount
As a reminder, the executive had set up in the spring a rebate of 15 to 18 cents including tax per liter of fuel, increased to 30 cents in September-October, to cope with rising fuel prices. On average, these discounts reduced prices by 10.8%, compared to changes in market prices.
They have thus made it possible to avoid an additional cost of 51 to 81 euros per motorist. However, this amount varies according to household income. In detail, for the wealthiest 25%, the rebates reduced the bill by 64 to 115 euros, against 29 to 48 euros for a quarter of the poorest households. However, this relief represents a smaller share of the income of the wealthiest households.
To come to this conclusion, INSEE researchers have studied consumer behavior when prices rise. By analyzing the bank data of 10,777 motorist customers of Crédit Mutuel, the statisticians have observed that a 1% increase in prices leads motorists to delay their purchases. Between September 2021 and January 2023, the volumes of fuel purchased thus decreased by 0.21% to 0.40% according to the study.
However, households do not react in the same way to rising prices. If the small riders – those who spend 17 euros per month on fuel – are more price sensitive, it is indeed the “big riders” (more than 120 euros of fuel per month) who further reduce their volumes of fuel consumed following of a price increase.
Increase in volumes consumed
The discounts made it possible to limit this drop in volumes consumed. Compared to a situation where prices would have remained at their high level at the start of 2022, these rebates increased fuel consumption by an estimated 16 to 31 litres.
This increase represents between 2.2% and 4.2% of the average annual consumption of a motorist household (740 litres). According to this study, urban motorist households spent 981 euros in fuel costs on average in 2022, compared to 1,480 euros for motorist households living in peri-urban areas and 1,855 euros for those living in rural areas.
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