Market Power,Permit Allocation and Efficiency in Emission Permit Markets

Market power in permit markets has been examined in some detail following the seminal work of Hahn (Q J Econ 99(4):753–765, 1984), but the effect of free allocation on price manipulation with market power in both product and permit market has not been fully addressed. I show that in this case, the threshold of free allocation above which a dominant firm will set the permit price above its marginal abatement costs is below its optimal emissions in a competitive market, and that overall efficiency cannot be achieved by means of permit allocation alone. In addition to being of general economic interest, this issue is relevant in the context of the EU ETS. I find that the largest German, UK and Nordpool power generators received free allowances in excess of the derived threshold. Conditional on having price-setting power in both the electricity and permit markets, these firms would have found it profitable to manipulate the permit price upwards despite being net permit buyers.     

Market power and output-based refunding of environmental policy revenues

Output-based refunding of environmental policy revenues combines a tax on emissions with a production subsidy, typically in a revenue-neutral fashion. With imperfect competition, subsidies can alleviate output underprovision. However, when market shares are significant, endogenous refunding reduces abatement incentives and the marginal net tax or subsidy. If market shares differ, marginal abatement costs will not be equalized, and production is shifted among participants. In an asymmetric Cournot duopoly, endogenous refunding leads to higher output, emissions, and overall costs compared with a fixed rebate program targeting the same emissions intensity. These results hold whether emissions rates are determined simultaneously with output or strategically in a two-stage model.     

Buyer Liability and Voluntary Inspections in International Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading: A Laboratory Study

This paper reports a preliminary laboratoryexperiment in which traders make investments toincrease the reliability of tradableinstruments that represent greenhouse gasemissions allowances. In one half of thesessions these investments are unobservable,while in the other half traders can invitecostless and accurate inspections that makereliability investments public. We implement abuyer liability rule, so that if emissionsreductions are unreliable (i.e., sellersdefault), the buyer of the allowances cannotredeem them to cover emissions. We find thatallowing inspections significantly increasesthe reliability investment rate and overallefficiency. Prices of uninspected allowancesusually trade at a substantial discount due tothe buyer liability rule, which provides astrong market incentive for sellers to investin reliability.     

The changing economic status of U.S. disabled men: Trends and their determinants, 1982–1991

We track the level of economic well-being of the population of men who began receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefits in 1980–81 from the time just after they became beneficiaries (in 1982) to 1991. We present measures of the economic well-being of disabled individuals and their nondisabled peers as indicators of the relative economic position of these two groups. These measures also provide an intertemporal comparison of well-being and hardship as disabled persons and their nondisabled peers age and retire. We first show several economic well-being indicators for new male recipients of disability benefits in 1982 and 1991. We then compare their economic position to that of a matched group of nondisabled males with sufficient work histories to have been disability-insured. Because labor market changes over this decade have led to a relative deterioration in the position of younger and less-educated workers, we compare men with disabilities to those without disabilities and distinguish different age and educational levels within the groups. We conclude by assessing the antipoverty effectiveness of Social Security income support for both younger and older male SSDI recipients. First version received: May 1998/final version received: July 1999     

Phase I Completed: An Empirical Assessment of the 1990 CAAA

With the conclusion of Phase I trading of SO₂ allowances, the EPA declared the allowance trading policy to be a success. The time had come to include cap-and-trade programs in the arsenal of effective policy tools. In terms of reducing atmospheric emissions of sulfur dioxide, the program appears to be successful. It is not clear, however, whether or not the program has minimized the cost of achieving the emission reductions. The measure of the true success of a market-based incentive program, however, has yetto be quantified: Has the program resulted in converging marginalabatement costs across participant plants? In this study I report theshadow prices of Phase I power plants from 1994 to 1998 anddetermine that there are more costs to be saved within theambitious public policy experiment.     

Retirement in Australia: A Closer Look at the Financial Incentives

In Australia, labour force participation among older people has been declining. Previous research has found that in many OECD countries, the retirement income system actually provides a financial incentive for older workers to retire early. In this article, we model the retirement behaviour of Australian men and women aged between 55 and 70 years, where individuals retire in the period that the present value of their lifetime retirement income is maximised. Our findings suggest that the Australian retirement system does provide an incentive to retire early. However, men are much more likely than women to respond to these financial incentives.     

欧盟碳排放权交易体系第三阶段改革对碳价格的影响

欧盟碳排放权交易体系第三阶段改革成效显著,研究其关键改革政策对碳市场的影响,将为我国的碳市场建设提供一定的经验借鉴。本文选取了第三阶段三项主要改革政策——配额总量递减、折量拍卖、市场稳定储备机制作为评估对象,以第三阶段欧盟碳配额期货价格的日度数据为被解释变量,三大改革政策为解释变量,采用时间序列协整模型和向量误差修正模型对各因素的影响作出评估。研究结果表明,各项改革政策都与碳配额期货价格呈正向协整关系,通过改善市场供求失衡状况,有效推动了第三阶段碳价格的提高,对减排企业形成了长效的激励和约束,提高了欧盟碳排放权交易体系的运行效率。因此,我国在建立和完善碳排放权交易体系进程中,要根据本国情况合理设置配额总量和配额分配方式,设置配额柔性调整机制,不断提高市场流动性,促进碳价格的提高,保证碳排放权交易市场的稳定发展。     

Economic Implications of Alternative Allocation Schemes for Emission Allowances*

For reasons of political feasibility, emission trading systems may have to rely on free initial allocation of emission allowances in order to ameliorate adverse production and employment effects in dirty industries. Against the background of an emerging European‐wide emission trading system, we examine the trade‐off between such compensation and economic efficiency under output‐based and emissions‐based allocation rules. We show that the emissions‐based allocation rule is more costly than the output‐based rule in terms of maintaining output and employment in energy‐intensive industries. When the international allowance price increases, the inferiority of emissions‐based allocation vis‐à‐vis output‐based allocation becomes more pronounced, as emission subsidies drastically restrict efficiency gains from international trade in emission allowances.     

Emissions Trading with Updated Allocation: Effects on Entry/Exit and Distribution

Allocation of emissions allowances may have significant distributional and efficiency effects. It is well known that cost-efficiency may be achieved if allowances are auctioned or distributed in a lump sum manner, e.g., based on emissions levels before the start of the system (‘grandfathering’). Böhringer and Lange (Eur Econ Rev 49:2041–2055, 2005) show that a cost-effective outcome can also be achieved if the base year for allocation is continually updated (‘updating’), given that banking and borrowing are prohibited. In this paper we examine whether updating alters the entry and exit conditions for firms compared to grandfathering, and how it affects profits for new and existing firms. We find that the two schemes function surprisingly similar: First, the incentives to entry and exit are identical. Second, the total value of free quotas to existing firms, based on emissions before the system starts, is also identical without any auctioning. With updating initial claims for free allowances have a shorter lifetime compared to grandfathering, but quota prices are higher as firms anticipate the effect of current emissions on future claims to free allowances. The two effects exactly cancel each other out. If there is some combination of auction and free allocation, the total value of free quotas will always be highest under grandfathering if the auction rate is the same. Entry and exit incentives are still equal.     

Endogenous market power in an emissions trading scheme with auctioning

This paper contributes to the literature on market power in emissions permits markets, modeling an emissions trading scheme in which polluters differ with respect to their marginal abatement costs at the business-as-usual emissions. The polluters play a two-stage static complete information game in which their market power arises endogenously from their characteristics. In the first stage all polluters bid in an auction for the distribution of the fixed supply of permits issued by the regulator, and in the second stage they trade these permits in a secondary market. For compliance, they can also engage in abatement activity at a quadratic cost. Under the assumptions of the model, in equilibrium all polluters are successful in the auction. In the secondary market the low-cost emitters are net sellers and the high-cost emitters are net buyers. Moreover, the high-cost emitters are worse off as a result of the strategic behavior. In addition, the secondary market price is unambiguously above the auction clearing price. I find that the aggregate compliance cost when polluters act strategically increases in the heterogeneity of their marginal abatement costs at the business-as-usual emissions, but there exists a threshold of the fixed supply of permits above which strategic behavior is compliance cost-saving for the polluters. Finally, for a low enough variance of the marginal abatement cost at the business-as-usual emissions, strategic behavior is compliance cost-saving for the polluters, regardless of the level of the available supply of permits.     

Implications of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions trading for short-run electricity market outcomes in northwest Europe

We examine the short-run implications of CO₂ trading for power production, prices, emissions, and generator profits in northwest Europe in 2005. Simulation results from a transmission-constrained oligopoly model are compared with theoretical analyses to quantify price increases and windfall profits earned by generators. The analyses indicate that the rates at which CO₂ costs are passed through to wholesale prices are affected by market competitiveness, merit order changes, and elasticities of demand and supply. Emissions trading results in large windfall profits, much but not all of which is due to free allocation of allowances. Profits also increase for some generators because their generation mix has low emissions, and so they benefit from electricity price increases. Most emission reductions appear to be due to demand response not generation redispatch.      

Hot air for sale: a quantitative assessment of Russia’s near-term climate policy options

Since January 2005 the European Union has launched an EU-internal emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) for emission-intensive installations as the central pillar to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. The EU ETS will be linked to a Kyoto emissions market where greenhouse gas emission allowances of signatory Kyoto countries can be traded. In this paper we investigate the implications of Russian market power for environmental effectiveness and regional compliance costs to the Kyoto Protocol taking into account potential linkages between the Kyoto emissions market and the EU ETS. We find that Russia may have incentives to join the EU ETS as long as the latter remains relatively separated from the Kyoto international emissions market. In this case, Russia can exert monopolistic price discrimination between two separated markets thereby maximizing revenues from hot air sales. The EU will be able to substantially reduce compliance costs if it does not restrain itself to EU-internal emission regulation schemes. However, part of the gains from extra-EU emissions trading will come at the expense of environmental effectiveness as (more) hot air will be drawn in.      

The Impact of the EU ETS on Prices,Profits and Emissions in the Power Sector: Simulation Results with the COMPETES EU20 Model

This paper analyses the impact of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) on electricity prices, in particular on wholesale power markets across the EU. To study this impact, this paper discusses the major results of a bottom-up modelling analysis of the implications of emissions trading for the performance of the wholesale power market in 20 European countries. The analyses show that a significant part of the costs of (freely allocated) CO₂ emission allowances is passed through to power prices, resulting in higher electricity prices for consumers and additional (‘windfall’) profits for power producers, even in cases of full auctioning. In addition, they show that the ETS-induced increases in power prices depend not only on the level of CO₂ prices but also on the structure of the power market, i.e., the incidence of market power, and the price responsiveness of power demand. Finally, the analyses show that the internalization and pass-through of carbon costs are crucial elements in a policy regime to reduce CO₂ emissions by both changing the mix of power generation technologies and lowering total electricity demand.     

The effectiveness of anti-leakage policies in the European Union: results for Austria

With the third trading period of the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) starting in 2013, the system of allocating emission allowances will significantly change: In contrast to the previous two trading periods, auctioning of the allowances should now be the rule rather than the exception. Accompanying this policy change, concerns over competitiveness of energy intensive, trade exposed sectors as well as over limited environmental effectiveness via the channel of carbon leakage, have regained prominence. In this paper, we thus explore the impacts of potential EU policies to counter losses in international competitiveness and carbon leakage from the perspective of Austria. Based on numerical simulations with a computable general equilibrium model, we evaluate three policy options: an input subsidy for carbon allowances (thus reflecting the planned partially free allocation mechanism in the third EU ETS phase), a subsidy for domestic production, and an export rebate based on sectoral CO₂ costs. Our results show that each policy has the potential to support domestic production in exposed sectors relative to a full auctioning scenario and thus increase competitiveness. However, none is imperatively effective at reducing Austria’s net carbon emissions: while the carbon trade balance is improved and hence leakage declines, the tradability of emission permits within the EU ETS allows CO₂ emissions from Austria’s ETS output to increase. A cost benefit analysis indicates that the two policies promoting domestic output and exports are more cost effective than the CO₂ input subsidy.     

Eco-Labeling and Horizontal Product Differentiation

This paper investigates the impact of eco-labels on the abatement of emissions in a market with horizontal product differentiation. A distinction is made between an end-of-pipe abatement method and a clean technology approach. In the former case underinvestment is likely to occur even if the marginal willingness to pay for abatement of consumers is equal to the social marginal benefit of abatement. The level of abatement depends on the number of firms and on the number of consumers. For a large market with few firms overinvestment in abatement is also possible. Clean technology abatement achieves a first best level regardless of market size if all consumers have a marginal willingness to pay for abatement equal to its social benefit.     

Abuse of EU Emissions Trading for Tacit Collusion

In this paper, we show that loopholes in EU emissions trading law foster tacit collusion that impacts oligopolistic product markets. The abuses originate from the covert misuse of EU emissions trading institutions, such as pooling or project-based mechanisms. We analyse two types of these loopholes by means of game theoretical methods to show how oligopolistic firms establish output restrictions, even if those firms are price takers on the~permit market (which might actually be the case for the majority of obligated firms in the EU). The identified misuse of emissions trading law increases firms’ profits, decreases the consumers’ surplus and has negative effects on social welfare for specified parameter ranges. Consequently, public authorities should not allow emissions trading’s overall good reputation—based upon its efficient abatement of pollution—to blind them to options in European emissions trading legislation that would eventually restrict competition.      

Option value of emission allowances

We study the market for emission allowances stipulated in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment. We assume that the number of allowances is fixed and that demand is affected by a stochastic parameter that follows a Wiener process (Brownian motion). The optimal investment policy for scrubbers is characterized. Investments in scrubbers are reduced if there is greater uncertainty about future market conditions. This is because purchases of emission allowances provide flexibility to adapt to demand conditions in a way that installing scrubbers does not. The price of emission allowances may therefore exceed the marginal cost of scrubbers by an amount called the option value. We derive an explicit formula for the option value and present computational results to illustrate its likely magnitude.     

THE SO2 EMISSIONS TRADING PROGRAM: COST SAVINGS WITHOUT ALLOWANCE TRADES

Title IV of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act initiated a historic experiment in incentive-based environmental regulation by permitting electric generating facilities to trade allowances for emission of sulfur dioxide. To date, relatively little allowance trading has occurred. However, the costs of compliance have been much less than anticipated. The purpose of this paper is to address the apparent paradox—that the allowance trading program may not require (very much) trading in order to be successful. Title IV represented two great steps forward in environmental regulation: (i) a move toward performance standards and (ii) formal allowance trading. The first step has been sufficient to date for improving dynamic efficiency and achieving relative cost-effectiveness.     

Capital income taxation,depreciation allowances and economic growth: A perfect-foresight general equilibrium model

Conclusions The results indicated in Table 1 show that incomplete depreciation allowances reinforce the distortions in the equilibrium growth path brought about by an ideal capital income tax. A reduction in the deductible share of economic depreciation, like an increase in the tax rate, raises the current level of consumption, but reduces the steady state levels of consumption and capital per efficiency unit of labour.The reason for these distortions is that the tax law is able to drive wedges both between the rate of time preference and the market rate of interest, and between the latter and the marginal productivity of capital. The first wedge is created through capital income taxation as such and its size is directly related to the tax rate. The second wedge is created by the incomplete deductibility of depreciation. Its size is directly related to the tax rate and inversely to the deductible share of depreciation. For the distortion in the growth path of the economy it is the sum of the two wedges that counts. Therefore it is plausible that incomplete depreciation allowances reinforce the effects of capital income taxation.Knowing the determinants of the two wedges one can easily derive the influence of a tax reform on the marginal productivity of capital, the market rate of interest and the rate of time preference (cf. Table 2). In the short run, the system of these three interest rates is anchored by the marginal productivity of capital, and hence any measure that widens a wedge is translated into a reduction in the rate or those rates below the wedge. In the long run the system is anchored by the rate of time preference and an increase in the width of a wedge is translated into an increase in those rates or that rate above this wedge.The paper was written in association with the Sonderforschungsbereich 5 (Staatliche Allokationspolitik im marktwirtschaftlichen System).     

On Pollution Permit Banking and Market Power

We consider a pollution permit market with a large firm and fringe of competitive firms. To smooth compliance towards a long-run emissions goal, firms are initially allocated a stock (i.e., bank) of permits that can be gradually consumed. We first show how the large firm can credibly manipulate the spot market in subgame-perfect equilibrium. Motivated by features observed in the US market for sulfur dioxide emissions, we then show that the introduction of stock transactions has no effects on market power, but that forward trading and incomplete observability of stock holdings do have pro-competitive effects. Both authors are also Research Associates at the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.