Employment Impacts of EU Biofuels Policy: Combining Bottom-up Technology Information and Sectoral Market Simulations in an Input-output Framework

This paper analyses the employment consequences of policies aimed to support biofuels in the European Union. The promotion of biofuels use has been advocated as a means on the one hand to promote the sustainable use of natural resources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions originating from transport activities, and on the other hand to reduce dependence on imported oil and thereby increase security of the European energy supply. The employment impacts of increasing biofuels shares are calculated by taking into account a set of elements comprising: the demand for capital goods required to produce biofuels, the additional demand for agricultural feedstock, higher fuel prices or reduced household budget in the case of price subsidisation, price effects ensuing from a hypothetical world oil price reduction linked to substitution in the EU market, and price impacts on agro-food commodities. The calculations refer to scenarios abutting on the year 2020 targets as set out by the recent Renewable Energy Roadmap. Employment effects are assessed in an Input-output framework taking into account bottom-up technology information to specify biofuels activities and linked to partial equilibrium models for the agricultural and energy sectors.

NEUWAHL Frederik;  LOESCHEL Andreas;  MONGELLI Ignazio;  DELGADO SANCHO Luis; 

2008-10-17

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

JRC43137

0921-8009,   

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.04.018,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC43137,   

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.04.018,