IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jaerec/doi10.1086-716522.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Food versus Fuel? Impacts of the North Dakota Oil Boom on Agricultural Prices

Author

Listed:
  • James B. Bushnell
  • Jonathan E. Hughes
  • Aaron Smith

Abstract

Farmers and politicians in North Dakota and nearby states claim that dramatic increases in shipments of crude oil by rail in 2013–14 caused service delays and higher costs. We investigate these claims, accounting for other potential sources of rail congestion. We show that grain price spreads between the market hub and regional elevators expanded significantly when crude oil shipments increased. However, the incidence of those effects was borne mostly by buyers paying higher prices at the hub rather than farmers receiving lower prices. The effects differ by the type of grain being transported. Wheat markets were affected much more than corn and soybeans, most likely because shipping delays were more costly for wheat than corn and soybeans. When rail capacity is scarce, railroads use railcar auctions to price discriminate over the time sensitivity of a shipment.

Suggested Citation

  • James B. Bushnell & Jonathan E. Hughes & Aaron Smith, 2022. "Food versus Fuel? Impacts of the North Dakota Oil Boom on Agricultural Prices," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 79-112.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/716522
    DOI: 10.1086/716522
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/716522
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/716522
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/716522?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.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qian, Yu & Xu, Zeshui & Qin, Yong & Gou, Xunjie & Skare, Marinko, 2023. "Measuring the varying relationships between sustainable development and oil booms in different contexts: An empirical study," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/716522. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JAERE .

    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.