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Impact of Ethanol Plants on Local Land Use Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Ruiqing Miao
Ruiqing Miao*
Affiliation:
Energy Biosciences Institute of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
*
Correspondence: Institute for Genomic Biology, 1206 West Gregory, Urbana, IL 61801, Phone 515.520.1979, Email miaorong@illinois.edu.
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Abstract

We investigate effects of corn-based ethanol plants on local land uses using county-level panel data for Iowa for 1997 through 2009 and an Arellano-Bond difference-generalized method-of-moments estimator. Our results show that ethanol plants have statistically significant effects on the proportion of acres planted to corn in the plants’ host counties. Furthermore, ceteris paribus, the land-use-change effect of locally owned plants (owned by local farmers or cooperatives) is about twice as large as the effect of plants with nonlocal owners. We also explore implications for the environment of ethanol plants and the changes in land use that they induce.

Keywords

Arellano-Bond difference generalized method of moments estimatorethanol plantsIowaland use changewater quality
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , August 2013 , pp. 291 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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