More than <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mn>40</mn> <mi mathvariant="normal">%</mi> </math> of US grain is used for energy due to the Renewable Fuel Mandate (RFS). There are no studies of the global distributional consequences of this purely domestic policy. Using micro‐level survey data, we trace the effect of the...

Many countries have actively encouraged the production of biofuels as a low-carbon alternative to the use of fossil fuels in transportation. To what extent do these trends imply a reallocation of scarce land away from food to fuel production? This paper critically reviews the small but growing...

The purpose of this paper is to show that not taking into account clearing costs does not allow to describe correctly the cultivated land dynamics when food demand would require to devote to agriculture an increasing fraction of available land. We also show that the validity of the conclusions...

Fossil fuel use causes the atmospheric accumulation of carbon. The society, endowed with an alternative clean renewable energy, aims at keeping this pollution stock below a prescribed target. The use of an abundant and costly backstop shall follow the exhaustion of the polluting resource; in case...

A well-known theorem by Herfindahl states that the low-cost nonrenewable resource must be exploited first. Consider resources that are differentiated only by their pollution content. For instance, both coal and natural gas are used to generate electricity, yet coal is more polluting. We show...

In the midwestern United States, ethanol produced from corn is mixed with gasoline to meet clean air standards. Allocating land to produce clean fuel means taking away land from farming. We examine the use of a scarce fossil fuel that causes pollution but may be substituted by a clean fuel...

We study how environmental regulation in the form of a cap on aggregate emissions from a fossil fuel (e.g., coal) interacts with the arrival of a clean substitute (e.g., solar energy). The cost of the substitute is assumed to decrease with cumulative use because of learning-by-doing. We show...