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Did the Renewable Fuel Standard Shift Market Expectations of the Price of Ethanol?

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  • Christiane Baumeister
  • Reinhard Ellwanger
  • Lutz Kilian

Abstract

It is commonly believed that the response of the price of corn ethanol (and hence of the price of corn) to shifts in biofuel policies operates in part through market expectations and shifts in storage demand, yet to date it has proved difficult to measure these expectations and to empirically evaluate this view. We utilize a recently proposed methodology to estimate the market’s expectations of the prices of ethanol, unfinished motor gasoline and crude oil at horizons from three months to one year. We quantify the extent to which price changes were anticipated by the market, the extent to which they were unanticipated, and how the risk premium in these markets has evolved. We show that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is likely to have increased ethanol price expectations by as much $1.45 in the year before and in the year after the implementation of the RFS had started. Our analysis of the term structure of expectations provides support for the view that a shift in ethanol storage demand starting in 2005 caused an increase in the price of ethanol. There is no conclusive evidence that the tightening of the RFS in 2008 shifted market expectations, but our analysis suggests that policy uncertainty about how to deal with the blend wall raised the risk premium in the ethanol futures market in mid-2013 by as much as 50 cents at longer horizons. Finally, we present evidence against a tight link from ethanol price expectations to corn price expectations and hence to storage demand for corn in 2005-06.

Suggested Citation

  • Christiane Baumeister & Reinhard Ellwanger & Lutz Kilian, 2016. "Did the Renewable Fuel Standard Shift Market Expectations of the Price of Ethanol?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6282, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6282
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Fretheim, Torun, 2019. "An empirical analysis of the correlation between large daily changes in grain and oil futures prices," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 66-75.
    2. Erten Bilge & Tuzcuoglu Kerem, 2018. "Output Effects of Global Food Commodity Shocks," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, June.
    3. Lawell, Cynthia Lin & Yi, Fujin & Thome, Karen E, 2017. "The Effects of Subsidies and Mandates: A Dynamic Model of the Ethanol Industry," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt73n0t4pv, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    4. Pozo, Veronica F. & Bejan, Vladimir & Bachmeier, Lance, 2017. "Are Price Transmissions between U.S. Energy and Corn Markets Asymmetric?," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258232, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Christiane Baumeister, 2021. "Measuring Market Expectations," Working Papers 202163, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    6. Maryam Movahedifar & Hossein Hassani & Masoud Yarmohammadi & Mahdi Kalantari & Rangan Gupta, 2021. "A robust approach for outlier imputation: Singular Spectrum Decomposition," Working Papers 202164, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    7. Curtis McKnight & Feng Qiu & Marty Luckert & Grant Hauer, 2021. "Prices for a second‐generation biofuel industry in Canada: Market linkages between Canadian wheat and US energy and agricultural commodities," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 69(3), pages 337-351, September.
    8. Efthymios G. Pavlidis & Ivan Paya & David A. Peel, 2018. "Using Market Expectations to Test for Speculative Bubbles in the Crude Oil Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(5), pages 833-856, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    biofuels; policy uncertainty; term structure of price expectations; price shocks; market integration; anticipation; storage demand; risk premium; crude oil; gasoline; corn;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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