The behaviour of suppliers and consumers in mandated markets: the introduction of the ethanol–petrol blend E10 in Germany

ABSTRACT

In December 2010, the German government increased the maximum ethanol content that can be blended with petrol from 5% to 10%, which facilitated the introduction of the ethanol–petrol blend E10. The revised ethanol–petrol blend was introduced with ambitions towards decarbonizing the transport sector as well as to support energy security and rural development. While usually supportive of actions aimed to combat climate change, the great majority of German motorists have refused to buy E10. The lacking demand for E10 is the empirical phenomenon addressed by this study. How did the fuel suppliers comply with the policy provisions? Which actors made attempts to influence the motorists’ demand for the new ethanol–petrol blend? Which actor was assigned the responsibility for the problems that occurred upon the rollout of the new fuel type? These research questions guide this study, which concentrates on the behaviour of transport fuel suppliers and consumers in mandated markets, that is, markets created by policy provisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Biofuels
• compliance
• demand
• E10
• mandated markets

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this paper benefitted from comments by Paul Cairney, Itay Fischhendler, Holger Nehring, Andrea Schapper, Hannes Stephan, and three anonymous reviewers. Rebecca Abu Sharkh deserves credit for language-editing the manuscript and Laura Zöckler and Annika Maretzki for research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jale Tosun is a Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University. She works on a range of topics in the fields of public policy, international political economy, European integration, and public administration.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fritz Thyssen Stiftung [grant number 10.13.2.141].