Agricultural Commodities and the U.S. Ethanol Mandate

摘要

In Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the U.S. Ethanol Mandate (NBER Working Paper No. 15921), Michael Roberts and Wolfram Schlenker note that the inflation-adjusted price for an annual diet of 2000 calories a day for one person from rice, corn, wheat, or soybeans generally has trended downwards since 1915. However, following the 2005 U.S. Energy Policy Act, which mandated that 7.5 million gallons of ethanol be produced by 2012, and the 2009 U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, requiring that 11 billion gallons of ethanol be blended into U.S. gasoline, corn prices nearly quadrupled to $8.00 a bushel. Prices for rice, wheat, and soybeans rose by similar amounts. The question is how much the US mandate affected world food prices.