In recent years, the price and income elasticity of fuel demand in South Africa has featured prominently in energy and competition policy proceedings and in major corporate planning projects. The paper investigates the price and income elasticity of gasoline (petrol), diesel and jet fuel demand in South Africa. Such a study is essential, given the significant structural change in fuel consumption behaviour over the 1990s and the paper builds compare the results of econometric models based on a longer sample period covering 1982Q1 to 2010Q4 and a shorter sample period covering 1998Q1 to 2010Q4. The econometric model is based on an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, reduced to a parsimonious specification using an automated reduction algorithm.
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