Welfare Impacts of Alternative Biofuel and Energy Policies
研究美国能源政策对经济的影响，发现燃油税和乙醇补贴的组合能接近最优碳税和关税的福利效果，且政策收益主要来自改善贸易条件。
An open‐economy equilibrium model is derived to investigate the effects of energy policy on the U.S. economy, with emphasis on corn‐based ethanol. A second best policy of a fuel tax and ethanol subsidy is found to approximate fairly closely the welfare gains associated with the first best policy of an optimal carbon tax and tariffs on traded goods. The largest economic gains to the U.S. economy from these energy policies arise from their impact on U.S. terms of trade, particularly in the oil market. Conditional on the current fuel tax, an optimal ethanol mandate is superior to an optimal ethanol subsidy.