American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate
American Economic Review
vol. 103,
no. 6, October 2013
(pp. 2265–95)
Abstract
We present a new framework to identify supply elasticities of storable commodities where past shocks are used as exogenous price shifters. In the agricultural context, past yield shocks change inventory levels and futures prices of agricultural commodities. We use our estimated elasticities to evaluate the impact of the 2009 Renewable Fuel Standard on commodity prices, quantities, and food consumers' surplus for the four basic staples: corn, rice, soybeans, and wheat. Prices increase 20 percent if one-third of commodities used to produce ethanol are recycled as feedstock, with a positively skewed 95 percent confidence interval that ranges from 14 to 35 percent.Citation
Roberts, Michael J., and Wolfram Schlenker. 2013. "Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate." American Economic Review 103 (6): 2265–95. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.6.2265Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- Q11 Agriculture: Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
- Q16 Agricultural R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services
- Q42 Alternative Energy Sources
- Q48 Energy: Government Policy