Correlations between biofuels and related commodities before and during the food crisis: A taxonomy perspective

A-Tier
Journal: Energy Economics
Year: 2012
Volume: 34
Issue: 5
Pages: 1380-1391

Score contribution per author:

1.341 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the relationships between the prices of biodiesel, ethanol and related fuels and agricultural commodities with a use of minimal spanning trees and hierarchical trees. To distinguish between short-term and medium-term effects, we construct these trees for different frequencies (weekly and monthly). We find that in short-term, both ethanol and biodiesel are very weakly connected with the other commodities. In medium-term, the biofuels network becomes more structured. The system splits into two well separated branches — a fuels part and a food part. Biodiesel tends to the fuels branch and ethanol to the food branch. When the periods before and after the food crisis of 2007/2008 are compared, the connections are much stronger for the post-crisis period. This is the first application of this methodology on the biofuel systems.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:eneeco:v:34:y:2012:i:5:p:1380-1391
Journal Field
Energy
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25