How Biofuels Policies Boosted Grain Staple Prices: A Counterfactual Analysis

Eugenio Bobenrieth, Brian Wright () and Di Zeng

No 170709, 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: We empirically address the implications of biofuel policy regarding major grains, to the subsequent evolution of the markets for calories from the three major grains, maize, wheat and rice. The implied market variables, namely, market price, consumption, and stocks, using a structurally estimated model combined with data on current and projected demand shifts, replicate the levels and dynamics of actual market behaviors, including the price rise before and during the 2007-2008 world food price crisis and the price dip at the breakout of the latest financial crisis. Counterfactual market variables constructed by removing mandates and their effects on production suggest that the biofuel mandate is the main driving force of the increase in price levels.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Demand and Price Analysis; Food Security and Poverty; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy; Risk and Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-ene
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/170709/files/B ... A%202014%20Final.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea14:170709

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.170709

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().