IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bjafio/v5y2007i2n4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fuel Ethanol Subsidies and Farm Price Support

Author

Listed:
  • Gardner Bruce

    (University of Maryland, College Park)

Abstract

Ethanol subsidies are well established in U.S. policy and have high priority in corn growers' political agenda. This paper develops a vertical market model of ethanol, byproducts, and corn which is used to analyze whether corn growers would prefer the government's subsidy dollar to be spent directly on corn subsidies (though deficiency payments) rather than on a subsidy on ethanol made from corn. Because the subsidy dollar has to be shared with ethanol manufacturers under the ethanol subsidy, it is to be expected, and the model confirms, that a dollar spent on a direct corn subsidy increases corn growers' producer surplus more than an a dollar spent on an ethanol subsidy under many plausible values of the relevant parameters. But there are equally plausible parameter values under which the ethanol subsidy is preferred by corn growers. The economics of this result turn mainly on the price discrimination an ethanol subsidy creates between ethanol and corn used for feed and export purposes, reducing the buyers' price of ethanol and byproducts but increasing the price of corn fed and exported. This enables producers of corn and ethanol to increase their joint producer surpluses above the total value of subsidies paid. The paper also analyzes the social cost (deadweight loss) of these subsidies, and finds the ethanol subsidy to generate deadweight losses likely to be in the billions of dollars annually.

Suggested Citation

  • Gardner Bruce, 2007. "Fuel Ethanol Subsidies and Farm Price Support," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-22, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bjafio:v:5:y:2007:i:2:n:4
    DOI: 10.2202/1542-0485.1188
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1542-0485.1188
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1542-0485.1188?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eidman, Vernon R., 2007. "Economic Parameters for Corn Ethanol and Biodiesel Production," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 1-12, August.
    2. Miranowski, John A, 2007. "Biofuel Incentives and the Energy Title of the 2007 Farm Bill," ISU General Staff Papers 200705170700001565, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Miranowski, John, 2007. "Biofuel Incentives and the Energy Title of the 2007 Farm Bill," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12821, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. de Gorter, Harry & Just, David R., 2007. "The Law of Unintended Consequences: How the U.S. Biofuel Tax Credit with a Mandate Subsidizes Oil Consumption and Has No Impact on Ethanol Consumption," Working Papers 127022, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    2. Andrian, Leandro Gaston, 2010. "Essays on energy economics: Microeconomic and macroeconomic dimensions," ISU General Staff Papers 201001010800002725, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Maura Allaire and Stephen P. A. Brown, 2015. "The Green Paradox of U.S. Biofuel Subsidies: Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    4. Bhattacharya, Suparna & Azzam, Azzeddine M. & Mark, Darrell R., 2009. "Ethanol and Meat in the U.S.: A Multi-Market Analysis," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49371, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. JunJie Wu & Christian Langpap, 2015. "The Price and Welfare Effects of Biofuel Mandates and Subsidies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(1), pages 35-57, September.
    6. de Gorter, Harry & Just, David R., 2007. "The Welfare Economics of an Excise-Tax Exemption for Biofuels and the Interaction Effects with Farm Subsidies," Working Papers 127014, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    7. Bansal, Ankit & Illukpitiya, Prabodh & Singh, Surendra P. & Tegegne, Fisseha, 2013. "Economic competitiveness of ethanol production from cellulosic feedstock in Tennessee," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 53-57.
    8. Robert Hahn & Caroline Cecot, 2009. "The benefits and costs of ethanol: an evaluation of the government’s analysis," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 275-295, June.
    9. repec:lic:licosd:35114 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Drabik, Dusan, 2011. "The Theory of Biofuel Policy and Food Grain Prices," Working Papers 126615, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    11. Funk, Samuel M. & Zook, James E. & Featherstone, Allen M., 2008. "Chicago Board of Trade Ethanol Contract Efficiency," 2008 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2008, Dallas, Texas 6811, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    12. Drabik, Dušan & Ciaian, Pavel & Pokrivčák, Ján, 2016. "The effect of ethanol policies on the vertical price transmission in corn and food markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 189-199.
    13. Moschini, GianCarlo & Lapan, Harvey & Kim, Hyunseok, 2016. "The Renewable Fuel Standard: Market and Welfare Effects of Alternative Policy Scenarios," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235721, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Henderson, Jason R. & Gloy, Brent A., 2008. "The Impact of Ethanol Plants on Land Values in the Great Plains," 2007 Agricultural and Rural Finance Markets in Transition, October 4-5, 2007, St. Louis, Missouri 48148, Regional Research Committee NC-1014: Agricultural and Rural Finance Markets in Transition.
    15. Dahlgran, Roger A., 2009. "Inventory and Transformation Hedging Effectiveness in Corn Crushing," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 34(1), pages 1-18, April.
    16. David Ubilava, 2012. "Modeling Nonlinearities in the U.S. Soybean‐to‐Corn Price Ratio: A Smooth Transition Autoregression Approach," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 29-41, January.
    17. Wallace E. Tyner & Farzad Taheripour, 2008. "Policy Options for Integrated Energy and Agricultural Markets," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 30(3), pages 387-396.
    18. Drabik, Dušan & de Gorter, Harry, 2013. "Emissions from Indirect Land Use Change: Do they Matter with Fuel Market Leakages?," Review of Agricultural and Applied Economics (RAAE), Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra, vol. 16(2), pages 1-13, September.
    19. repec:ags:ijag24:347272 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Sparks, G.D. & Ortmann, Gerald F. & Lagrange, L., 2010. "An Economic Evaluation of Soybean-Based Biodiesel Production on Commercial Farms in the Soybean-Producing Regions of KwaZulu-Natal: Some Preliminary Results," 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa 95980, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    21. Brent A. Gloy & Jason Henderson, 2008. "The impact of ethanol plants on cropland values in the Great Plains," Regional Research Working Paper RRWP 08-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    22. repec:ags:ijag24:347278 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Lapan, Harvey & Moschini, GianCarlo, 2012. "Second-best biofuel policies and the welfare effects of quantity mandates and subsidies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 224-241.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bjafio:v:5:y:2007:i:2:n:4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.