Search Results
Working Paper
Deliverability and regional pricing in U.S. natural gas markets
During the 1980s and early '90s, interstate natural gas markets in the United States made a transition away from the regulation that characterized the previous three decades. With abundant supplies and plentiful pipeline capacity, a new order emerged in which freer markets and arbitrage closely linked natural gas price movements throughout the country. After the mid-1990s, however, U.S. natural gas markets tightened and some pipelines were pushed to capacity. We look for the pricing effects of limited arbitrage through causality testing between prices at nodes on the U.S. natural gas ...
Working Paper
An international perspective on oil price shocks and U.S. economic activity
The effect of oil price shocks on U.S. economic activity seems to have changed since the mid-1990s. A variety of explanations have been offered for the seeming change?including better luck, the reduced energy intensity of the U.S. economy, a more flexible economy, more experience with oil price shocks and better monetary policy. These explanations point to a weakening of the relationship between oil prices shocks and economic activity rather than the fundamentally different response that may be evident since the mid-1990s.> ; Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of world ...
Journal Article
An overview of science and cents: exploring the economics of biotechnology
This article provides an overview of the conference "Science and Cents: Exploring the Economics of Biotechnology," hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in April 2002. The conference brought together distinguished experts who spoke about economic and scientific issues surrounding biotechnology. In this article, John Duca and Mine Ycel summarize the presentations made at the conference. Topics covered include funding, location, and legal issues confronting the biotech industry. The interdisciplinary nature of biotech research, along with recent advances and future applications, is ...
Journal Article
The pricing of natural gas in U.S. markets
Stephen Brown and Mine Ycel examine how different natural gas users and the market institutions serving them affect the transmission of price changes throughout various markets for natural gas. Electrical utilities and industrial users buy much of their natural gas in a competitive spot market served by brokers and interstate pipeline companies. In contrast, most commercial and residential customers are dependent on local distribution companies, which earn a regulated rate of return and buy their gas under long-term contracts. ; Using time-series methods, Brown and Ycel find that even in the ...
Journal Article
Renewable fuel standards hit the 'blend wall'
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandated that a minimum amount of biofuel be blended into transportation fuels. But nine years after the law was passed, the energy landscape has changed.
Journal Article
The economic impact of biotechnology
Journal Article
Gasoline and crude oil prices: why the asymmetry?
Many consumers complain that gasoline and crude oil prices have an asymmetric relationship in which gasoline prices raise more quickly when crude oil prices are rising than they fall when crude oil prices are falling. Many also regard the asymmetry they observe as evidence of market power in the petroleum industry. Most previous research provides econometric evidence of the asymmetry, confirming at least part of what consumers suspect. In this article Stephen Brown and Mine Yucel extend the inquiry by examining the market conditions underlying the asymmetric relationship between gasoline ...
Journal Article
Texas economy stalled by recession
Working Paper
Energy security: a comparison of protectionist policies