Switching to Perennial Energy Crops under Uncertainty and Costly Reversibility

Feng Song, Jinhua Zhao and Scott Swinton

No 56195, Staff Paper Series from Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

Abstract: We study a farmer’s decision to convert traditional crop land into growing dedicated energy crops, taking in account sunk conversion costs, uncertainties in traditional and energy crop returns, and learning. The optimal decision rules differ significantly from the expected net present value rule, which ignores learning, and from real option models that allow only one way conversions into energy crops. These models also predict drastically different patterns of land conversions into and out of energy crops over time. Using corn-soybean rotations and switchgrass as examples, we show that the model predictions are sensitive to assumptions about stochastic processes of the returns. Government policies might have unintended consequences: subsidizing conversion costs into switchgrass reduces proportions of land in switchgrass in the long run.

Keywords: Land Economics/Use; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy; Risk and Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-ene
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Switching to Perennial Energy Crops Under Uncertainty and Costly Reversibility (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:midasp:56195

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.56195

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