Abstract

BECERRA PEREZ, Luis Armando. La demanda de etanol en Estados Unidos, 1981-2009. Región y sociedad [online]. 2012, vol.24, n.53, pp.205-229. ISSN 2448-4849.

This article estimates a demand function for ethanol within the U. S. economy. A cointegration exercise for different time series between 1981-2009 was performed using Johansen's methodology. We found the normalized cointegrating vector, with the results matching the expected theoretical signs. The results indicate that ethanol demand is very elastic to the price of ethanol itself, but is even more elastic to the price of gasoline, and is also very inelastic to the final sale price of automobiles. Therefore, faced with an international scenario of bullish oil-and therefore gasoline-prices, ethanol demand in the United States will increase consistently over time, as will biofuel imports.

Keywords : ethanol demand; ethanol cointegration; biofuel; ethanol.