IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15921.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate

Author

Listed:
  • Michael J. Roberts
  • Wolfram Schlenker

Abstract

We present a new framework to identify demand and supply elasticities of agricultural commodities using yield shocks - deviations from a time trend of output per area, which are predominantly caused by weather fluctuations. Demand is identified using current-period shocks that give rise to exogenous shifts in supply. Supply is identified using past shocks, which affect expected future prices through inventory accretion or depletion. We use our estimated elasticities to evaluate the impact of ethanol subsidies and mandates on world food commodity prices, quantities, and food consumers' surplus. The current US ethanol mandate requires that about 5 percent of world caloric production from corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans be used for ethanol generation. As a result, world food prices are predicted to increase by about 30 percent and global consumer surplus from food consumption is predicted to decrease by 155 billion dollars annually. If a third of the biofuel calories are recycled as feed stock for livestock, the predicted price increase scales back to 20 percent. While commodity demand is extremely inelastic, price response is muted by a significant supply response that is obscured if futures prices are not instrumented. The resulting expansion of agricultural growing area potentially offsets the CO2 emission benefits from biofuels.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael J. Roberts & Wolfram Schlenker, 2010. "Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate," NBER Working Papers 15921, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15921
    Note: EEE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15921.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kanlaya J. Barr & Bruce A. Babcock & Miguel A. Carriquiry & Andre M. Nassar & Leila Harfuch, 2011. "Agricultural Land Elasticities in the United States and Brazil," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(3), pages 449-462.
    2. Michael J. Roberts & Nigel Key & Erik O'Donoghue, 2006. "Estimating the Extent of Moral Hazard in Crop Insurance Using Administrative Data," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 28(3), pages 381-390.
    3. Nelson, Charles R & Startz, Richard, 1990. "Some Further Results on the Exact Small Sample Properties of the Instrumental Variable Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 967-976, July.
    4. Shanjun Li & Christopher Timmins & Roger H. von Haefen, 2009. "How Do Gasoline Prices Affect Fleet Fuel Economy?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 113-137, August.
    5. José A. Scheinkman & Jack Schechtman, 1983. "A Simple Competitive Model with Production and Storage," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(3), pages 427-441.
    6. Searchinger, Timothy & Heimlich, Ralph & Houghton, R. A. & Dong, Fengxia & Elobeid, Amani & Fabiosa, Jacinto F. & Tokgoz, Simla & Hayes, Dermot J. & Yu, Hun-Hsiang, 2008. "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12881, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Stephen P. Holland & Jonathan E. Hughes & Christopher R. Knittel, 2009. "Greenhouse Gas Reductions under Low Carbon Fuel Standards?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 106-146, February.
    8. Lucille Williamson & Paul Williamson, 1942. "What We Eat," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 24(3), pages 698-703.
    9. Eugenio S. A. Bobenrieth H. & Juan R. A. Bobenrieth H. & Brian D. Wright, 2002. "A Commodity Price Process with a Unique Continuous Invariant Distribution Having Infinite Mean," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1213-1219, May.
    10. Michael J. Roberts & Wolfram Schlenker, 2009. "World Supply and Demand of Food Commodity Calories," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1235-1242.
    11. Askari, Hossein & Cummings, John Thomas, 1977. "Estimating Agricultural Supply Response with the Nerlove Model: A Survey," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 257-292, June.
    12. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    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. Haile, Mekbib G. & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Braun, Joachim von, 2013. "Inter-and intra-annual global crop acreage response to prices and price risk," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 149695, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Magrini, Emiliano & Morales-Opazo, Cristian & Balie, Jean, 2014. "Supply response along the value chain in selected SSA countries: the case of grains," 2014: Food, Resources and Conflict, December 7-9, 2014. San Diego, California 197193, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    3. Mekbib G. Haile & Matthias Kalkuhl & Joachim Braun, 2014. "Inter- and intra-seasonal crop acreage response to international food prices and implications of volatility," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(6), pages 693-710, November.
    4. Haile, Mekbib G. & Kalkuhl, Matthias & von Braun, Joachim, 2013. "Short-term global crop acreage response to international food prices and implications of volatility," Discussion Papers 145308, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    5. Brian Wright, 2014. "Global Biofuels: Key to the Puzzle of Grain Market Behavior," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 73-98, Winter.
    6. Magrini, Emiliano & Balié, Jean & Morales Opazo, Cristian, 2016. "Price signals and supply responses for staple food crops in SSA countries," DARE Discussion Papers 1601, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development (DARE).
    7. Miguel Carriquiry & Amani Elobeid & Jerome Dumortier & Ryan Goodrich, 2020. "Incorporating Sub‐National Brazilian Agricultural Production and Land‐Use into U.S. Biofuel Policy Evaluation," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3), pages 497-523, September.
    8. Eugenio S. A. Bobenrieth & Juan R. A. Bobenrieth & Brian D. Wright, 2014. "Bubble Troubles? Rational Storage, Mean Reversion, and Runs in Commodity Prices," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Food Price Volatility, pages 193-208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Okeke, Edward N., 2013. "Brain drain: Do economic conditions “push” doctors out of developing countries?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 169-178.
    10. Valin, Hugo & Havlik, Petr & Mosnier, Aline & Obersteiner, Michael, 2012. "Impacts of Alternative Climate Change Mitigation Policies on Food Consumption under various Diet Scenarios," Conference papers 332253, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    11. Creutzig, Felix & McGlynn, Emily & Minx, Jan & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2011. "Climate policies for road transport revisited (I): Evaluation of the current framework," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2396-2406, May.
    12. Chen, Xiaoguang & Huang, Haixiao & Khanna, Madhu & Önal, Hayri, 2014. "Alternative transportation fuel standards: Welfare effects and climate benefits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 241-257.
    13. Xie, Yang & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Water Storage Capacities versus Water Use Efficiency: Substitutes or Complements?," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205439, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Catherine Hausman, 2012. "Biofuels and Land Use Change: Sugarcane and Soybean Acreage Response in Brazil," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 51(2), pages 163-187, February.
    15. Vorotnikova, Ekaterina, 2016. "Optimal Storage Capacity Allocation in Grain Merchandizing," 2016 Annual Meeting, February 6-9, 2016, San Antonio, Texas 230128, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    16. Huang, Haixiao & Khanna, Madhu & Önal, Hayri & Chen, Xiaoguang, 2013. "Stacking low carbon policies on the renewable fuels standard: Economic and greenhouse gas implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 5-15.
    17. Lade, Gabriel E. & Lin Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia, 2015. "The design and economics of low carbon fuel standards," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 91-99.
    18. He, Xi & Chen, Zhenshan, 2022. "Weather, cropland expansion, and deforestation in Ethiopia," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    19. Debnath, Deepayan & Whistance, Jarrett & Thompson, Wyatt, 2017. "The causes of two-way U.S.–Brazil ethanol trade and the consequences for greenhouse gas emission," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 2045-2053.
    20. Austin, K.G. & Jones, J.P.H. & Clark, C.M., 2022. "A review of domestic land use change attributable to U.S. biofuel policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices

    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:nbr:nberwo:15921. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.