Ethanol crush spreads are used to model the value of a facility which produces ethanol from corn. A real option analysis is used to investigate the effects of model parameters on the related managerial decisions of (i) how to operate the facility through optimal switching from idled to...

Corn ethanol plants have been criticized for a number of reasons in recent years. This paper provides another ground for criticizing these plants. Historical corn and gasoline prices are uncorrelated, but widespread adoption of corn ethanol production might reasonably lead to future correlation...