Biomass based energy production has attained a significant market share within the developing renewable energy market. In comparison to alternative renewable energy sources, biomass has several special features: it is not inexhaustible in the short term (limitation of arable land) and it is not...

In the context of ever-increasing petroleum prices combined with concerns about climate change, timing of adoption and rate of diffusion of land-based fuels and backstop technologies for transportation use are examined in this paper. A global model of land allocation joined with a Hotelling...

The paper presents an extended gravity equation application for the global trade with ethanol. The background and different attempts for a theoretical foundation of the standard approach are discussed. The econometric work takes regional integration schemes into account, as well as the influence...

This paper assesses the global and sectoral implications of the EU biofuels directive in a multi-region computable general equilibrium framework. Our results show that without mandatory blending or subsidies to stimulate the use of biofuel crops in the petroleum sector the targets of the EU...

The European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme (EUETS) and the current renewable resource program provide strong incentives to use agricultural crops either for combustion in power plants to produce electricity and heat or as a feedstock for transportation fuels. In this paper we examine the...

Standard deterministic analysis of agricultural and biofuel policies can yield incomplete or misleading results. Stochastic analysis is especially important when policies have asymmetric effects and when there is intrinsic interest in uncommon events or the distribution of possible outcomes. The...

The impact of increased consumption of biofuels on agricultural markets has already been substantial, and will increase further as countries around the world seek to expand the proportion of their energy that they get from renewable sources. Models of the agricultural sector must therefore...

In its Progress Report on Biofuels the European Commission proposes a more restrictive biofuel directive which sets a mandatory minimum share of biofuels in total fuel consumption in the transport sector of 10% per Member State by 2020. This is likely to have a strong impact on demand for...

The object of this paper is to analyze, in a general equilibrium setting with four markets, the efficiency of a biofuel subsidy policy. The analysis takes into account environmental externalities associated both with the production and the consumption of biofuels, as well as associated with the...

Although food quality and food safety issues seem to dominate discussion and research in Europe, price inflation and economic recession may pose questions over food abundance over the coming years. For the first time since the early seventies, market stability for a number of commodities is...