IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aare11/101001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic and Marketing Efficiency Among Corn Ethanol Plants

Author

Listed:
  • Sesmero, Juan P.
  • Perrik, Richard K.
  • Fulginiti, Lilyan E.

Abstract

In the corn ethanol industry, the ability of plants to obtain favorable prices through marketing decisions is considered important for their overall economic performance. Based on a panel of surveyed of ethanol plants we extend data envelopment analysis (DEA) to decompose the economic efficiency of plants into conventional sources (technical and allocative efficiency) and a new component we call marketing efficiency. The latter measure allows us to evaluate plants’ ability to contract favorable prices of corn and ethanol relative to spot market prices and its implications for their overall economic performance. Results show that plants are very efficient from a technical point of view. Dispersion in overall economic performance observed across units is mainly explained by differences in allocative and marketing sources. Our results are consistent with the view that plants with higher production volumes may perform better, in part, because they can secure more favorable prices through improved marketing performance. Plants also seem to achieve significant improvements in marketing performance through experience and learning-by-doing. These results are consistent with two facts; 1) economies of scale may not be the only reason behind the increase in the average size of plants in the ethanol industry and; 2) there might be incentives for horizontal consolidation across plants.

Suggested Citation

  • Sesmero, Juan P. & Perrik, Richard K. & Fulginiti, Lilyan E., 2011. "Economic and Marketing Efficiency Among Corn Ethanol Plants," 2011 Conference (55th), February 8-11, 2011, Melbourne, Australia 101001, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:aare11:101001
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.101001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/101001/files/Economic%20and%20Marketing%20Efficiency%20Among%20Corn%20Ethanol%20Plants%2002-26.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.101001?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enghin Atalay & Ali Horta?su & Chad Syverson, 2014. "Vertical Integration and Input Flows," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1120-1148, April.
    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. Hyunbae Chun & Jung Hur & Young Gak Kim & Hyeog Ug Kwon, 2017. "Cross-border Vertical Integration and Intra-firm Trade: New Evidence from Korean and Japanese Firm-level Data," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 16(2), pages 126-139, Summer.
    2. Vasco M. Carvalho & Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi, 2019. "Production Networks: A Primer," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 635-663, August.
    3. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "Global Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(2), pages 565-619, June.
    4. Christopher Hansman & Jonas Hjort & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Matthieu Teachout, 2020. "Vertical Integration, Supplier Behavior, and Quality Upgrading among Exporters," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3570-3625.
    5. P. Charnoz & C. Lelarge & C. Trevien, 2016. "Communication Costs and the Internal Organization of Multi-Plant Businesses: Evidence from the Impact of the French High-Speed Rail," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2016-02, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    6. Ferracuti, Elia, 2022. "Information uncertainty and organizational design," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1).
    7. James E. Rauch, 2014. "Employee spinouts, social networks, and family firms," Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 4-17, March.
    8. Ronald B. Davies & Julien Martin & Mathieu Parenti & Farid Toubal, 2018. "Knocking on Tax Haven’s Door: Multinational Firms and Transfer Pricing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 120-134, March.
    9. Milliou, Chrysovalantou, 2020. "Vertical integration without intrafirm trade," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    10. García-Vega, María & Huergo, Elena, 2017. "Trust and technology transfers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 92-104.
    11. Lorenzo Burlon, 2015. "Ownership networks and aggregate volatility," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1004, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Ghebrihiwet, Nahom, 2017. "Acquisition or direct entry, technology transfer, and FDI policy liberalization," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 455-469.
    13. Macchiavello, Rocco & Miquel-Florensa, Josepa, 2017. "Vertical Integration and Relational Contracts: Evidence from the Costa Rica Coffee Chain," CEPR Discussion Papers 11874, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Bryan Hong & Lorenz Kueng & Mu-Jeung Yang, 2015. "Estimating Management Practice Complementarity between Decentralization and Performance Pay," NBER Working Papers 20845, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Gianluigi Giustiziero & Tobias Kretschmer & Deepak Somaya & Brian Wu, 2023. "Hyperspecialization and hyperscaling: A resource‐based theory of the digital firm," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(6), pages 1391-1424, June.
    16. Jamil, Nida & Chaudhry, Theresa Thompson & Chaudhry, Azam, 2022. "Trading textiles along the new silk route: The impact on Pakistani firms of gaining market access to China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    17. Nasini, Stefano & Verschelde, Marijn & Merlevede, Bruno, 2024. "Optimal transfer prices and technology in decentralized business groups," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 319(3), pages 920-942.
    18. Franz-Josef Bade & Eckhardt Bode & Eleonora Cutrini, 2015. "Spatial fragmentation of industries by functions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(1), pages 215-250, January.
    19. P. Giannoccolo & C. Vergari, 2015. "Revealing incentives for vertical integration in the presence of glocal policies," Working Papers wp1015, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    20. Johannes Boehm, 2014. "The Impact of Contract Enforcement Costs on Outsourcing and Aggregate Productivity," 2014 Meeting Papers 340, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ags:aare11:101001. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.html .

    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.