Professor of Applied Economics and Idaho Wheat Commission Bill Flory Endowed Chair in Risk Management, University of Idaho
Energy and Fertilizer Markets
Energy markets sit upstream of nearly every farm input cost. My work in this area covers the U.S. natural gas market after deregulation and the shale revolution, including price drivers, regional market integration, volatility regimes, and the effects of state tax and ownership policies on production. Related work examines economic policy uncertainty and tail risk in energy futures, renewable energy policy, and the regional economic effects of shale development.
The fertilizer strand connects these energy dynamics to agriculture, deconstructing fertilizer price spikes, testing for bubbles in urea markets, and tracing price and volatility transmission from natural gas through fertilizer to corn.
Representative publications
Thomas, P.*, and Etienne, X.L.# Do tax policies affect the natural gas industry? Evidence based on panel vector autoregressions. Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 21(1), 2685835. doi
Etienne, X.L., Durongkadej, I., and Scarcioffolo, A. 2026. Policy uncertainty and tail risk in energy futures: The role of maturity and storage capacity constraints. Forthcoming. Journal of Financial Research. doi
Thomas, P.*, Collins, A., and Etienne, X.L.# 2026. State-level policies and renewable energy generation in the United States. Utilities Policy, 98, 102080. doi
Lai, T.*, Etienne, X.L., Hu, Z.#, and Peng, K. 2026. Price bubbles and contributing factors: Evidence from the Chinese urea fertilizer market. Applied Economics Letters, 33(9), 1449–1453. doi
Hu, Z., Yan, L., Yuan, J.*, and Etienne, X.L.# 2025. Deconstructing fertilizer price spikes: Evidence from the Chinese urea fertilizer market. Food Policy, 133, 102829. doi
Wang, L.*, Etienne, X.L.#, and Li, J. 2024. Food–fuel nexus beyond mean–variance: New evidence from a quantile approach. Journal of Commodity Markets, 36, 100441. doi
Thomas, P.*, Collins, A., Etienne, X.L.#, and Mugabe, D. 2024. Impacts of state tax and resource ownership policies on extraction: Evidence from U.S. natural gas production. Energy Economics, 138, 107869. doi
Xu, Y., Elbakidze, L., and Etienne, X.L. 2022. Unconventional oil and gas production and agricultural land use in the United States. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 48(2), 219–236. doi
Zhang, Q., Etienne, X.L., Wang, Z.#, and Ding, R. 2022. Reducing coal overcapacity in China: A new perspective of optimizing local officials’ promotion system. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. doi
Nuñez, H., Trujillo-Barrera, A., and Etienne, X.L. 2022. Declining integration in the U.S. natural gas market. Resources Policy, 78, 102872. doi
Shakya, S.*, Li, B., and Etienne, X.L.# 2022. Shale revolution, rig activities, and oil and gas prices in the United States. Energy Economics, 108, 105877. doi
Huang, K.*, and Etienne, X.L.# 2021. Impact of Marcellus and Utica shale exploitation on Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia regional economies: A synthetic control analysis. Papers in Regional Science, 100(6), 1449–1479. doi
Scarcioffolo, A.*, and Etienne, X.L. 2021. Testing directional predictability between energy prices: A quantile-based analysis. Resources Policy, 74, 102258. doi
Scarcioffolo, A.*, and Etienne, X.L. 2021. Regime switching energy market volatility: The role of economic policy uncertainty. International Review of Economics and Finance, 76, 336–356. doi
Huang, K.*, and Etienne, X.L.# 2021. Do natural hazards in the Gulf Coast still matter for the state-level natural gas prices in the United States after the rise of new production states? Energy Economics, 98, 105267. doi
Scarcioffolo, A.*, and Etienne, X.L.# 2019. How connected are the U.S. regional natural gas markets in the post-deregulation era? Evidence from time-varying connectedness analysis. Journal of Commodity Markets, 15, 1–18. doi
Wiggins, S.*, and Etienne, X.L. 2017. Turbulent times: Uncovering the origins of U.S. natural gas price fluctuations since deregulation. Energy Economics, 64, 196–205. doi
Etienne, X.L., Trujillo-Barrera, A., and Wiggins, S.* 2016. Price and volatility transmissions between natural gas, fertilizer, and corn markets. Agricultural Finance Review, 76(1), 151–171. doi
In progress
Scarcioffolo, A., and Etienne, X.L. Energy price shocks: The case of the diesel market in Brazil.
Farhangdoost, S.*, and Etienne, X.L. Forecasting natural gas prices in the shale boom era.
Farhangdoost, S.*, and Etienne, X.L. Time-varying announcement effect of EIA inventory reports.