Europeans Have More Cars Than Americans - Say What?

Max Fisher discusses the data reported in a newly published Carnegie Endowment paper, which upends traditional ideas about car usage. It turns out that car ownership rates are higher in nearly every Western European country than in the United States. "The U.S. is ranked 25th in world by number of passenger cars per person,
just above Ireland and just below Bahrain," observes Fisher. "There are 439 cars here for
every thousand Americans, meaning a little more than two people for
every car."   

So what explains this state of affairs? "The Carnegie paper explains that car ownership rates are closely tied to
the size of the middle class," explains Fisher. "In fact, the paper [titled "In Search of the Global Middle Class: A New Index"] actually measures car
ownership rates for the specific purpose of using that number to predict
middle class size."

So does the data indicate that the US has a disproportionately small middle class? Fisher isn't convinced: "Still, it's also possible that the answer has less to do with
Americans adhering to Carnegie's thesis about car ownership predicting
middle class size and more to do with other, particularly American
factors. Young Americans are spending less of their money on cars, as
Jordan Weissmann explained, as they get driver's licences at lower rates and spend more of their money on, say, high-tech smart phones."