GianCarlo Moschini and Harvey Lapan, both of Iowa State University, were awarded a $260,000 grant through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. One long-term goal of the study is to develop a framework for the assessment of biofuel policy tools used by major economies, including the United States, Brazil, and the European Union, that explicitly accounts for their international ramifications. “Many countries have active and ambitious biofuels policies with various objectives, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fostering energy independence. For large countries, such policies have ‘leakage’ or ‘spillover’ effects on other countries. Yet, in setting (and evaluating) domestic policies, these spillovers are usually ignored. Consequently, the non-cooperative equilibrium that arises when policies are set independently differs from, and is generally inferior to, what would emerge in a cooperative equilibrium when countries coordinate their policies,” the researchers wrote in their proposal. Research work is set to conclude in 2016.