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If Ethanol Is The Answer, What Is The Question, Peter Z. Grossman
If Ethanol Is The Answer, What Is The Question, Peter Z. Grossman
Peter Z. Grossman
Since 2005, in the face of rising oil and gasoline prices, many Americans have looked to plant-based fuels, particularly ethanol, as the "answer" to our energy dilemmas. Section III examines the issues connected specifically to ethanol, how market forces as well as government subsidies have worked to make corn-based ethanol economically viable at times, why that viability has been lost in recent months even with subsidies, and further, why ethanol from corn on the scale the legislation demands is impractical. Clearly it would be technically possible to produce the mandated 15 billion gallons of ethanol, and distilling capacity will nearly …
When Is Command-And-Control Efficient? Institutions, Technology And The Comparative Efficiency Of Alternative Regulatory Regimes For Environmental Protection, Peter Z. Grossman, Daniel H. Cole
When Is Command-And-Control Efficient? Institutions, Technology And The Comparative Efficiency Of Alternative Regulatory Regimes For Environmental Protection, Peter Z. Grossman, Daniel H. Cole
Peter Z. Grossman
The nominal efficiency of a regulatory regime is determined by comparing its social costs and benefits; the regime is nominally efficient if it produces benefits in excess of its costs. Thus, a regulatory regime can be at once nominally efficient and relatively inefficient. A regulatory regime that is nominally efficient in the early days of pollution-control efforts, when increments of environmental quality are relatively cheap, may (but will not necessarily) grow less efficient over time - producing less return on each dollar invested - as increments of environmental quality grow increasingly expensive. A regulatory regime that is more efficient in …