agricultural land elasticities in the united states and brazil the elasticity of aggregate supply is one key to understanding the degree to which policy induced increases in demand for biofuel feedstocks or agricultural co2 offsets will result in higher prices or expanded supply in this paper we report land supply elasticities for the united states and brazil estimated directly from the observed changes in cropland and estimated changes in expected returns the resulting aggregate implied land use elasticities with respect to price are quite inelastic in the united states and more elastic in brazil 0 007 0 029 and 0 382 0 895 respectively however with pasture land included in brazil implied elasticities become much less inelastic 0 007 0 245

the economics of export performance requirements this paper analyzes the resource allocation and welfare effects of export performance requirements imposed on foreign investors it argues that a satisfactory analysis must consider the presence of tariff distortions and oligopolistic behavior in host country markets these create a second best environment in which an evaluation of the welfare effects of such requirements is no longer straightforward it is concluded that export requirements can improve home welfare by reducing payments to foreign capital reducing the output of commodities which are being overproduced and shifting profits toward domestically owned firms

quantitative restrictions and the welfare effects of capital inflows abstract this paper explores the welfare effects of capital inflows when some imports are subject to quantitative restrictions it is shown that in a heckscher ohlin model where all imports are restricted by quotas and some fraction of the initial domestic capital stock is foreign owned a capital inflow is welfare improving regardless of the ranking of sectoral factor intensities with sector specific capital stocks and both tariff ridden and quota restricted imports the consequences of direct foreign investment in any sector are uncertain and depend upon whether the two imports are compensated substitutes or complements as well as the characteristics of production

tariffs capital export and immiserizing growth abstract the purpose of this paper is to show how the brecher diaz 1977 and minabe 1974 propositions on the capital inflow from a tariff apply symmetrically to capital outflow that is when the home country continues to import the labor intensive goods while remaining incompletely specialized the capital outflow must reduce the home country s real income this will be so when the net return to home capital is greater than the home value of its marginal product at internal prices but less than the home value of its marginal product at world prices

estimating the degree of market integration existing tests of spatial market integration are commonly based on statistical criteria without an explicit link to an economic model of price determination this article proposes new measures of market integration defined directly in terms of a well known spatial price determination model and develops an econometric methodology for estimating these measures due to the intractability of the conditional density function of prices we use indirect inference to estimate the model parameters and market integration measures the methodology is illustrated with simulated data and is applied to soybean price data for the united states brazil and the eu copyright 2008 oxford university press

distributional and efficiency impacts of increased us gasoline taxes we examine the impacts of increased us gasoline taxes in a model that links the markets for new used and scrapped vehicles and recognizes the consider able heterogeneity among households and cars household choice parameters derive from an estimation procedure that integrates individual choices for car ownership and miles traveled we find that each cent per gallon increase in the price of gasoline reduces the equilibrium gasoline consumption by about 0 2

effects of foreign investment in the presence of unemployment abstract in this paper we present a simple model of unemployment in the presence of foreign investment in the traded sector more foreign investment increases employment in the nontraded sector but may or may not increase employment in the traded sector the effect on total employment is also ambiguous in a two country framework with foreign investment itself a variable we show that foreign investment should most likely be subsidized rather than taxed moreover the employment maximizing tax on foreign investment is shown to be less than the optimum tax

a commodity price process with a unique continuous invariant distribution having infinite mean we present a model of a storable commodity with a price process different from those usually associated with agricultural commodities or exhaustible resources this model has positive probability of zero output for consumption equal to zero price is infinite in any initial period with finite price the path of expected prices conditional on current information approaches infinity at a rate determined by the cost of storage and the variance also approaches infinity price is expected to fall with probability one in finite time successive price realizations are always correlated storage remains strictly positive and expected consumption exceeds a strictly positive bound there is a continuous limiting invariant distribution of price with infinite mean k

immiserizing investment from abroad the singer prebisch thesis reconsidered the present paper lends new analytical support to the controversial singer prebisch thesis according to this well known thesis less developed countries ldcs suffer a welfare loss from secular decline in their international terms of trade for primary product exports the standard theoretical criticism of the thesis makes two basic arguments both relating to the impact of economic expansion 2 first there is no well established presumption that the terms of trade for primary products will indeed deteriorate in a growing world economy second if domestic economic expansion does happen to worsen the terms of trade for ldcs economic welfare of these countries still need not deteriorate except under bhagwati s 1958 well known conditions for immiserizing growth thus the traditional critique sees the singer prebisch thesis as an unconvincing allegation about the relationship between growth and welfare via the terms of trade the following discussion suggests an alternative more favorable interpretation of the thesis this reinterpretation focuses upon the process of foreign investment4 rather than economic growth as the essential reason for adverse changes in the terms of trade and level of welfare for ldcs exporting primary products such a focus appears to be fully consistent with the analysis of singer 19501 5 whose main

strategic responses to defence sector restructuring an analysis of lancashire based companies this paper investigates the factors affecting the likelihood of lancashire based companies involved in defence production pursuing strategic responses to defence sector restructuring data covering 100 lancashire based companies form the lancashire defence survey database which is analysed results of the data analysis are of interest to organizations involved in local economic development policy making they suggest that the effects of restructuring are most profound in large core defece companies most directly involved in defence production other effects are passed on to companies that carry out subcontracting but there is less evidence of strategies being implemented in response to structural change among these companies company size product type and degree of defence dependency are uncovered as significant factors influencing whether a strategic response is instigated

capital and technology movements and economic welfare economists have long valued capital mobility as an aid to international efficiency robert mundell has shown that under certain conditions the capital movement induced by tariffs on goods will substitute for trade and enable the tariff impeded international economy to reach essentially the same equilibrium as would a completely free international economy it will also except possibly for the case when the optimal tariff is non zero benefit both countries but if perfect unlimited capital mobility is a good thing for the borrowing country it does not follow as this paper demonstrates that any limited amount of capital mobility however small is a good thing if the capital movement is due to discrepancies in returns due solely to a tariff then a small amount of capital inflow will actually diminish welfare in the recipient country thus countries which take a few cautious steps toward liberalization of capital flow may find their welfare diminished this conclusion is related to the intuitive notion that perhaps it might not be a good idea to allow only a few foreign investors to reap high rates of return in capital short countries if foreign investment is allowed enough should be allowed to depress the rate of return so that excessive profits are not taken otut of the country by a few privileged investors on the other hand however this paper shows that if differences in returns are due to a technological advantage in the capital importing country so that the country with initially high return to capital nonetheless exports the capital intensive good and if these differences in returns are accompanied but not caused by tariffs then even short hesitant steps toward liberalization of capital inflow will improve the borrowing country s welfare this paper also shows that the home country s welfare may be improved or diminished by importing the advanced country s technology when the home country levies a tariff and pays royalties for the technology the critical point is that a movement of technology may either increase or diminish economic welfare depending on whether the technological progress is of the capital saving type or of the labor saving type in the fixed production coefficients case in the same case when the technological progress is hicksian neutral technology inflow will reduce or have no effect on the home country s economic welfare depending on whether the foreign country s technological progress occurs in the home country s inmport competing or export industries similarly capital or technology inflow will never increase the borrowing country s welfare when the country specializes completely in a single industry some of these results should be modified when we treat the possibility that changes in factor prices alter factor proportions

welfare gains from capital inflows under import quotas abstract the presence of tariffs was assumed in the literature which examined the effect of additional foreign investment on the welfare of the host country in the small country setting however this paper analyzes the case of import quotas and shows that additional inflows of foreign capital improve the host country s welfare when import quotas are kept constant

the interpretation of instrumental variables estimators in simultaneous equations models with an application to the demand for fish in markets where prices are determined by the intersection of supply and demand curves standard identification results require the presence of instruments that shift one curve but not the other these results are typically presented in the context of linear models with fixed coefficients and additive residuals the first contribution of this paper is an investigation of the consequences of relaxing both the linearity and the additivity assumption for the interpretation of linear instrumental variables estimators without these assumptions the standard linear instrumental variables estimator identifies a weighted average of the derivative of the behavioural relationship of interest a second contribution is the formulation of critical identifying assumptions in terms of demand and supply at different prices and instruments rather than in terms of functional form specific residuals our approach to the simultaneous equations problem and the average derivative interpretation of instrumental variables estimates is illustrated by estimating the demand for fresh whiting at the fulton fish market strong and credible instruments for identification of this demand function are available in the form of weather conditions at sea

import restrictions capital taxes and welfare this paper develops a two good small country general equilibrium model with trade restrictions i e a tariff an import quota or a voluntary export restraint ver inter national capital mobility and taxes on the rate of return to capital within this context it examines the price and welfare effects of capital taxes the second best policy towards capital in the presence of such trade restrictions and the welfare implications of trade liberalization in the presence of capital taxes the analysis demonstrates among other things that i the optimal policy towards capital is a zero tax when imports are quota constrained and is a tax under a tariff and a subsidy under a ver when the imported good is capital intensive and that ii an asymmetry exists between trade and capital movements liberalization under the various trade regimes

the producer welfare effects of trade liberalization when goods are perishable and habit forming the case of asparagus asparagus is a perishable highly seasonal crop we find that out of season imports of asparagus caused habit formation that increased demand in the u s growing seasons we find that habit effects offset about 64 of the welfare losses to u s asparagus producers from increased mexican imports under nafta and all of the u s producer welfare losses from increased peruvian imports under the andean trade preference act we estimate that the u s producer welfare losses from nafta are less than the annualized value of market loss assistance provided them in the 2008 farm bill jel classifications d12 f130 q17 q18

the welfare effects of capital inflow in the presence of a tariff quota with revenue premium seeking abstract the paper re examines the impact of capital inflow on the welfare of a small host nation in the presence of a tariff quota with revenue premium seeking it is demonstrated that the welfare impact of capital inflow is neutral in the case of a tariff with revenue seeking but ambiguous in the case of a quota with premium seeking

the economic consequences of reduced uk military expenditure the last few years have seen a variety of proposals for uk disarmament for a re orientation of defence policy towards a less expensive non nuclear stance more commen surate with britain s present economic position in the world unfortunately these proposals become suddenly coy and tentative as they approach the economic implications of their programme in complete contrast to the detailed quantitative calculations they pro vide for other aspects the alternative defence commission 1983 and prins 1983 are typical examples of this the difficulties this lacuna creates are illustrated by the ordeal the labour party faced in the 1983 election campaign they advocated it appears a reduc tion of british defence expenditure which now accounts for just over 5 of gdp to about the european average of around 3 5 but they proved unable to counter the claim of the conservative defence secretary mr heseltine that this policy would cost 400 000 jobs 1 the hesitancy with which proponents of reductions in military expenditure approach the economic consequences is surprising given the near unanimity in the technical litera ture two major studies in the uk eiu 1963 and brown 1964 studies in the us leontief 1965 and a recent survey kennedy 1983 all indicate that disarmament represents an economic opportunity rather than an economic problem nonetheless the tenor of the recent policy literature suggests that it would be useful to provide a detailed assessment of the economic consequences of a reduction in uk military expenditure from 5 to 3 5 of gdp since the results obtained below are broadly in line with those of the studies cited above the contribution of this paper does not lie in the novelty of its conclusion rather it provides a detailed quantitative review of the economic issues cur rently involved in a transition to lower levels of military expenditure since there is a wide literature already available which provides arguments to suggest that such a transition could provide real security benefits the strategic aspects will only be mentioned in passing d smith 1980 and alternative defence commission 1983 provide detail on this

ec members fighting about surplus vers fdi and japanese cars the distribution of consumer and producer surplus among ec members of three different trade regimes free trade a voluntary export restraint ver and a ver in conjunction with foreign direct inv

international factor movements commodity trade and commercial policy in a specific factor model two events in the decade of the 1970s had a major impact on world trade and factor movements the collapse of the bretton woods fixed exchange rate system and opec s success in raising petroleum prices the enormous current account surplus accruing to some of the opec members was successfully recycled by the international capital markets to among others the oil importing developing countries in addition the vastly increased tempo of investment in the capital rich labour poor opec members in west asia attracted migration of labour skilled as well as unskilled to these countries from some of the oil importing developing countries the remittances from these workers in turn eased the problem of the labourexporting countries in adjusting to the increased cost of oil imports thus both borrowing from private capital markets and export of labour became very important elements in cushioning the oil shock for a number of countries the post opec movements of labour and financial capital while dramatic are only the more recent instances of a phenomenon of much greater antiquity the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw vast migration of people out of europe though these movements were the result of conquests and colonization rather than movements from one sovereign state into another but the nineteenth century particularly the latter half saw migration of the latter kind from europe to countries of north and south america as well as capital investment by residents of europe in these

sleeping quotas pre emptive quota bidding and monopoly power abstract we rationalize the puzzling existence of binding quotas that are not fully utilized our model has its roots in bhagwati 1965 in r baldwin et al eds trade growth and the balance of payments essays in honor of g haberler mit press new york on tariffs quotas equivalence and is related to the io literature on preemption we study the conditions that lead a monopolist facing a quota restricted market to buy the quota licenses itself and the conditions under which they may remain unused the divisibility of the quota is crucial for the monopolist to pre emptively buy the quota furthermore we study the implications of use it orlose it clauses commonly imposed on auctioned quotas

supply and demand elasticities in the u s ethanol fuel market abstract the market for ethanol has grown from approximately 1 2 billion gallons in 1997 to almost 5 billion gallons in 2006 with the huge increase in ethanol demand in recent years the growth in derived demand for corn has driven up many food prices this paper uses monthly data from 1997 2006 to estimate the market supply and demand for ethanol at the national level the simultaneous determination of the supply and demand curves using two stage least squares allows for the calculation of supply and demand side elasticities which are important results in light of the tremendous growth in this market and recent legislation concerning ethanol

a simple competitive model with production and storage we study a rational expectations partial equilibrium model of a market for a single storable commodity whose output each period is a function of previous period effort on production and a realization of a shock that affects equally all producers i he final demand is non random and depends only on each period s price risk neutral producers make production and storage decisions based on forecasts of future price distributions existence of equilibrium is proved and for the case of i i d shocks several comparative statics results are established as well as the existence and stability of a unique stationary distribution and whose output at each period is a multiplicative function of previous period s planting and of the realization of a shock that affects equally all producers the final demand for this good is non random and depends only on this period s price this describes approximately markets for agricultural products which are not traded internationally and where most of the price uncertainty stems from supply shocks risk neutral producers make their decisions based on forecasts of future price distributions and of known cost functions of storage and production to maximize their discounted profits in order to close the model an assumption on how such price forecasts are made is needed we assume that agents make equilibrium forecasts i e that their forecast is common and that when producers act taking the forecasted prices as given they make decisions that yield the forecasted prices as equilibrium prices this is of course what has been sometimes called rational expectations the assumption of equilibrium expectations and the presence of risk neutral pro ducers will imply that the equilibrium variables may be obtained by considering a related market surplus maximization problem 1 this places strong restriction on the stochastic process of equilibrium prices for the case where the basic shocks are assumed to be independently and identically distributed over time one may thus show that equilibrium prices are a function of a certain state variable the total stocks kept from last period plus this period s output and this allows us to derive properties of equilibrium solutions our main results concerning this case are a storage is a non increasing function of price and expected production a non decreasing one b the elasticity of expected future prices with respect to today s prices is positive and less than one c this elasticity is non constant being zero for high enough prices d the price process follows a renewal process if prices are low

commodity prices and unit root tests price theory suggests that commodity prices should be stationary series yet tests for unit roots rather frequently imply that these prices are not stationary this seeming inconsistency is investigated by applying alternative specifications of unit root tests to prices of corn soybeans barrows and gilts and milk the preponderance of evidence suggests that nominal prices do not have unit roots but the results are sensitive to the specification of the test equation accounting for a structural change that shifts the mean appears to be an important issue in unit root tests

should export share requirements be implemented under quota protection in this paper the authors develop a model to analyze the effects of export share requirements when a quota is in place they show that when foreign capital is located in specific economic activity zones identified with the importable sector an increase in export share requirements reduces welfare owing to the price induced higher payments to foreign capital

a quantile autoregression analysis of price volatility in agricultural markets this paper investigates the dynamics of agricultural price volatility based on a quantile autoregression qar model the qar model provides a flexible representation of the distribution of price and its dynamics the approach is applied to u s wheat and corn markets over the period of 1980 2017 this period is of significant interest as it covers important changes in agricultural policy and increased reliance on markets the price analysis is conducted conditional on stocks held in the previous period we show how increasing previous stocks shift the price distribution to the left and decreases the odds of facing price spikes by shifting down the upper tail of the price distribution our analysis also examines the effects of changing public stocks on prices for both wheat and corn this reflects changing agricultural policy contrasting the 1980s when public stocks were relatively high with the post 2005 period when public stocks became zero we document how higher public stock ratio during the previous period did not lower the odds of facing price spikes applied to the wheat and corn markets we also uncover evidence of local dynamic instability in the upper tail of the price distribution suggesting that price instability becomes more pronounced when previous stocks are low

imperfect factor mobility and the distribution of income abstract when labor is imperfectly mobile between industries workers may have a special interest in commercial policies that increase the price of the output of the industry in which they are employed this proposition is investigated in a two good model in which the degree of labor mobility is measured by the elasticity of a convex input transformation curve the existence of such a transformation curve is justified by a model in which individual workers have differing relative and absolute efficiencies in different industries the results are extended to the case of many industries

farm acreage shocks and crop prices an svar approach to understanding the impacts of biofuels the last 10 years have seen tremendous expansion in biofuels production particularly in corn ethanol in the united states at the same time that commodity prices e g corn have experienced significant spikes while supporters claim that biofuels are renewable and carbon friendly concerns have been raised about their impacts on land use and food prices this paper analyzes how us crop prices have responded to shocks in acreage supply these shocks can be thought of as a shock to the residual supply of corn for food using a structural vector auto regression framework we examine shocks to a crop s own acreage and to total cropland this allows us to estimate the effect of dedicating cropland or non crop farmlands to biofuels feedstock production a negative shock in own acreage leads to an increase in price for soybeans and corn our calculations show that increased corn ethanol production during the boom production year 2006 2007 explains approximately 27 of the experienced corn price rise

tariffs foreign capital and national welfare with sector specific factors abstract this paper examines the effect on national welfare of an endogenously determined inflow of foreign capital in the context of a well known model with sector specific inputs both for the case of unrestricted international trade and investment and in the presence of a tariff the second best problem of the optimal tax on foreign investment for a given tariff level is also investigated by application of the concept of shadow prices for primary factors in distorted open economies the results obtained are then related to analogous propositions derived previously for the standard heckscher ohlin model

the wood pellet market in austria a structural market model analysis abstract eu bioenergy policies and oil price hikes have resulted in a significant increase of installed pellet boilers for residential heating hence european demand for wood pellets has been growing faster and more steadily than supply leading to rising market prices in recent years this article presents an econometric analysis of demand and supply of wood pellets in the residential heating sector in austria one of the most dynamic markets for residential pellets annual and monthly time series data between 2000 and 2014 are used in a two stage least squares 2sls regression to estimate supply and demand elasticities of wood pellets in all model specifications pellets demand is found to be inelastic from 0 66 to 0 76 and pellets supply unit elastic from 1 03 to 1 18 thus consumers are highly exposed to price changes resulting from supply shocks policies which support investments in pellet boilers will shift the demand of wood pellets and likely leading to higher prices for consumers

world supply and demand of food commodity calories between the summers of 2006 and 2008 corn prices more than tripled from roughly 2 50 bushel to nearly 8 00 bushel prices for rice soybeans and wheat rose by similar or greater amounts the exceptionally large and unanticipated rise in prices was attributed to many factors including 1 ethanol subsidies 2 commensurately rising oil prices 3 unexpectedly large demand growth from china and india and 4 weatherrelated factors such as drought in australia while some have argued that the commodity price boom much like earlier housing and stock market booms were due to a

conversion policy in the uk the democratization of eastern europe the disintegration of the warsaw pact the proposed strategic arms reduction talks start and the conventional forces in europe cfe agreements are concrete evidence of the end to the cold war for nato these events have precipitated an overhaul of strategic policies resulting in major cutbacks in the defence budgets of member states in the u k this has given rise to a growing debate on the economic effects of cuts in the military burden and the possible benefits to be derived from what has become popularly labelled the peace dividend however the way in which resources are transformed for the military into civil use and the interpretation of the objectives of the conversion process lie at the centre of a controversy about the optimal use of the peace dividend this paper provides a critical assessment of the contributions to this debate copyright 1990 by oxford university press

the welfare consequences of directly unproductive profit seeking dup lobbying activities price versus quantity distortions abstract this paper is a contribution to the growing literature on the theory of what bhagwati 1982 has christened the theory of dup activities these are activities that use up real resources in making profits i e income without producing directly or indirectly a good they result therefore in the contraction of the availability set defined on goods for one generic subset of such dup activities namely distortion triggered lobbying activities the paper establishes asymmetrical propositions on the possibility of such dup lobbying resulting in a paradoxical improvement of welfare

tariffs quotas and voluntary export restraints with and without internationally mobile capital this paper presents a general framework for comparing the effects of tariffs quotas and vers voluntary export restraints both with and without international capital mobility expressions for the shadow price of foreign exchange and the shadow price of capital under each type of trade restriction are derived and it is shown that although international capital mobility raises the welfare cost of tariff protection it lowers the welfare cost of quantitative restrictions in most cases the effects of exogenous shocks in the presence of quotas are intermediate between those in the presence of tariffs and those in the presence of vers tarifs douaniers contingentements et restrictions volontaires d l exportation quand le capital est ou n est pas mobile internationalement l auteur presente un cadre general d analyse qu il utilise pour comparer les effets de tarifs douaniers de contingentements et de restrictions volontaires a l exportation dans des contextes ofu le capital est ou n est pas mobile internationalement l auteur derive le prix fictif du change etranger et le prix fictif du capital sous l un et l autre types de restrictions au commerce et montre que meme si la mobilite internationale du capital augmente le cofut en terme de bien etre de la protection tarifaire elle reduit le cofut en terme de bien etre des restrictions sur les quantites echangees dans tous les cas les effets de chocs exogenes quand des contingentements existent sont toujours dans la fourchette entre ceux qu on observe quand des tarifs douaniers existent et ceux qui prevalent quand des restrictions volontaires i l exportation existent

competitive storage and commodity price dynamics by buying cheap and selling dear risk neutral commodity speculators can smooth commodity prices and induce serial dependence in price even when none would exist under a simple process of supply and demand commodity prices are variable and strongly positively correlated from one year to the next the variability is often explained by supply factors and the autocorrelation by the activities of speculators we show that this explanation is not consistent with the evidence speculation can substantially increase autocorrelation for prices that are weakly autocorrelated in its absence but not to the high levels that are observed in the data

labor market distortions the structure of protection and direct foreign investment abstract this paper analyzes the welfare effects of direct foreign investment in a general model that allows for labor market distortions trade in both intermediate inputs and final goods export subsidies and protection in the form of either tariffs or quotas it is shown that contrary to the conventional wisdom there is not in general any strong connection between the orientation of the trade regime sectoral capital intensity rankings and the desirability of attracting foreign investment

a note on tariff induced capital inflow and immiserization in the presence of taxation of foreign profits abstract this paper develops further the formal model of tariff induced capital inflow and immiserization presented by bhagwati 1973 we set down the necessary and sufficient condition under which immiserization will follow in addition it will be shown that the possibility of immiserization depends crucially on the initial amount of foreign capital as well as the rate of corporation tax on foreign capital

do oil price increases cause higher food prices us retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in us biofuel policies in 2006 in contrast increases in the real prices of corn soybeans wheat and rice received by us farmers have been more substantial and can be linked in part to increases in the real price of oil that link however appears largely driven by common macroeconomic determinants of the prices of oil and of agricultural commodities rather than the pass through from higher oil prices we show that there is no evidence that corn ethanol mandates have created a tight link between oil and agricultural markets moreover increases in agricultural commodity prices have contributed little to us retail food price increases because of the small cost share of agricultural products in food prices in short there is no evidence that oil price shocks have been associated with more than a negligible increase in us retail food prices in recent years nor is there evidence for the prevailing wisdom that oil price driven increases in the cost of food processing packaging transportation and distribution have been responsible for higher retail food prices similar results hold for other industrialized countries there is reason however to expect food commodity prices to be more tightly linked to retail food prices in developing countries christiane baumeister and lutz kilian

identifying supply and demand elasticities of agricultural commodities implications for the us ethanol mandate we present a new framework to identify supply elasticities of storable commodities where past shocks are used as exogenous price shifters in the agricultural context past yield shocks change inventory levels and futures prices of agricultural commodities we use our estimated elasticities to evaluate the impact of the 2009 renewable fuel standard on commodity prices quantities and food consumers surplus for the four basic staples corn rice soybeans and wheat prices increase 20 per cent if one third of commodities used to produce ethanol are recycled as feedstock with a positively skewed 95 percent confidence interval that ranges from 14 to 35 per cent jel q11 q16 q42 q48

portuguese pellets market analysis of the production and utilization constrains abstract as opposite in portugal the wood pellets market is booming in europe in this work possible reasons for this market behavior are foreseen according to the key indicators of biomass availability costs and legal framework two major constrains are found in the portuguese pellets market the first one is the lack of an internal consumption being the market based on exportations the second one is the shortage of raw material mainly due to the competition with the biomass power plants therefore the combination of the biomass power plants with pellet production plants seems to be the best option for the pellets production in the actual portuguese scenario the main constrains for pellets market has been to convince small scale customers that pellets are a good alternative fuel mainly due to the investment needed and the strong competition with natural gas besides some benefits in the acquisition of new equipment for renewable energy they are insufficient to cover the huge discrepancy of the investment in pellets heating however pellets are already economic interesting for large utilizations in order cover a large amount of households additional public support is needed to cover the supplementary costs of the pellets heating systems

distortion triggered lobbying and welfare a contribution to the theory of directly unproductive profit seeking activities abstract the paper considers the normative implications of lobbying for non exclusive income generated by an exogenously specified policy intervention such lobbying activities are a subset of what bhagwati has termed directly unproductive profit seeking dup activities it is demonstrated that the welfare effects of lobbying triggered by a policy distortion depend critically on whether the direct impact of the policy constraint is on price or an quantity it is also shown that several standard comparative static welfare analyses of alternative policy distorted states are significantly affected once the policy intervention is assumed to be continuously accompanied by lobbying for the associated non exclusive income