The response of small and medium-size business customers to Time-of-Use (TOU) electricity rates in Israel

This paper reports on the methodology, data, and results of the Israeli Time-of-Use (TOU) electricity pricing experiment in the industrial/commercial sector. We concentrate on the estimation of the demand functions for electricity under TOU, and the net welfare gains which result from applying TOU rates to small and medium-size business customers in Israel. This experiment, which was preceded by a 15-month load research study to allow an optimal sample design, was concluded in June 1992. The analysis yielded four major conclusions: (1) The estimated gains of small and medium-size customers in Israel from TOU rates are sufficient to justify investment in TOU metering technology. (2) There have been small, but noticeable, shifts of electricity from the peak to the mid-peak (if relevant) and to the off-peak periods during all seasons of the year, and particularly during the winter. (3) The structure and number of labour shifts during the day, and weather, are important factors in determining the response of business customers to the TOU rates. (4) Price elasticities vary substantially over the seasons and across SIC groups; they do not vary with customer size.     

DEMAND,CUSTOMER BASE‐LINE AND DEMAND RESPONSE IN THE ELECTRICITY MARKET: A SURVEY

The increasing use of demand‐side management, as a tool to reliably meet electricity demands at peak time, has stimulated interest among researchers, consumers and producer organiza‐tions, managers, regulators and policymakers. This research reviews the growing literature on models which are used to study demand, customer base‐line (CBL) and demand response in the electricity market. After characterizing the general demand models, the CBL, based on which the demand response models are studied, is reviewed. Given the experience gained from the review and existing conditions, the study combines an appropriate model for each case for a possible application to the electricity market; moreover, it discusses the implications of the results. In the literature, these aspects are studied independently. The main contribution of this survey is attributed to the treatment of the three issues as sequentially interdependent. The review is expected to enhance the understanding of the demand, CBL and demand response in the electricity market and their relationships. The objective is conducted through a combination of demand and supply side managements in order to reduce demand through different demand response programs during peak times. This enables electricity suppliers to save costly electricity generation and at the same time reduce energy vulnerability.     

An estimation of NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision demand as a two‐part tariff

College football is one of the highest revenue generators for university athletic departments, and revenue from attendance is one of the major football revenue sources. This paper seeks to estimate the demand for Football Bowl Subdivision (Division I) college football using athletic department supplied financial information. I find that Football Bowl Subdivision athletic department's price spectator demand is consistent with two‐part tariffs.     

The industrial and commercial demand for electricity under time-of-use pricing

In this paper we have developed and estimated the demand for electricity by an industrial (commercial) firm subject to time-of-use (TOU) pricing of electric power. In the application we use a quadratic production function and directly incorporate into the production process the restrictions that some inputs cannot vary over the day. We show that the TOU structure implies a unique set of parameter restrictions across the demand functions for inputs.     

Staffing and equipment decisions for services: An experimental analysis

Many service-oriented firms face demand/work load variations that occur both within and between days, and seasonally during the year. These service firms tend to develop staffing plans based on peak periods, resulting in substantial idle time during low demand periods. To counter this, some firms hire part-time employees to work peak periods to improve productivity. In this way, the cost per customer/transaction (unit) can be reduced.However, the staffing decision is more complex than just determining the number and timing of the work force. The development of good staffing plans must consider the impact of available work stations like telephone consoles and data entry terminals. To use effectively more personnel during peak periods, the firm must have sufficient work stations to assign this work force. Effective staff scheduling must consider simultaneously the work load variations, employ capabilities, and equipment requirements. This article presents a model that incorporates these factors into the decision-making process and examines their interaction.The model analysis illustrates how uncertainty in work load forecasts and staffing flexibility influence expected cost performance and equipment requirements. A set of computer simulation experiments are conducted using operating data from the proof and encoding departments for Ohio National Bank and Chemical Bank. The results suggest that increased staffing flexibility reduces the needed equipment investment, since part time staff can be scheduled more conveniently to meet varying work loads. Also, basing capital equipment decisions on peak work load levels can substantially increase total operating costs. With these costs explicitly estimated, managers can weigh them against desired service level goals to determine the appropriate balance.     

Is the New England Urban Tax Rate Too High?

A bstract . Whether urban property tax rates in New England are too high is a matter of proper comparison. 20 cities in the 100,000 to 200,000 class size ate compared in respect of urban financial structure, economic characteristics, and tax rates to determine in what sense taxes could be said to be high. Average tax bills , measures of tax burden and dependence on revenue sharing were found to be significantly higher in New England. This was true despite the evidence that these cities–selected to be representative of many regions in the nation–were essentially alike. One emergent conclusion is the difference in tax rates reflects an actual difference in demand. That difference seems traceable to the one outstanding difference, the density of settlement.     

广西电网调峰电源的探讨与选择

当前,广西电力需求不断增长,峰谷差加大及电源结构调整将使电力系统的调峰问题愈来愈突出,电网的调峰压力日益加大,解决电网的调峰问题已成为广西电网面临的一个重要课题。文章对广西电网全年逐月典型日负荷曲线进行模拟计算,充分考虑电力系统中各类电站的技术经济能力,分析广西电网近远期调峰需求,比较论证现有和规划调峰电源建设条件,提出可行的调峰电源建设方案,对广西抽水蓄能电站的布局提出合理建议。     

A Comparison of Pay‐As‐Bid and Market‐Clearing Price Bidding Processes in Electric Utility Auctions

As the electric utility industry moves to Regional Transmission Organizations, there are more opportunities for merchant plants in selling wholesale energy to electric utilities. Two alternative bidding regimes are considered: (i) pay‐as‐bid and (ii) pay with market‐clearing bid. With stochastic price‐sensitive demand, we show that pay‐as‐bid has greater average price, but lower price variance than does market‐clearing price. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Booking horizon forecasting with dynamic updating: A case study of hotel reservation data

A highly accurate demand forecast is fundamental to the success of every revenue management model. As is often required in both practice and theory, we aim to forecast the accumulated booking curve, as well as the number of reservations expected for each day in the booking horizon. To reduce the dimensionality of this problem, we apply singular value decomposition to the historical booking profiles. The forecast of the remaining part of the booking horizon is dynamically adjusted to the earlier observations using the penalized least squares and historical proportion methods. Our proposed updating procedure considers the correlation and dynamics of bookings both within the booking horizon and between successive product instances. The approach is tested on real hotel reservation data and shows a significant improvement in forecast accuracy.     

The Lowry Model Revisited: Incorporating a Multizonal Input-Output Model into an Urban Land Use Allocation Model

This paper formulates a new generation of Lowry-style models that combine a multizonal input-output model and an urban land use allocation model. Three different types of models are proposed: 1) an unconstrained model, 2) a primal of a linear programming approach that includes land supply constraints, and 3) a modified dual of the linear programming approach that allocates land based on additional conditions of economic efficiency. The modified dual formulation improves upon the limitations of Lowry models and their derivatives. First, the proposed model has sound theoretical underpinnings that incorporate the production theory of input-output models and the behavioral theory of optimization models. Second, the proposed model allocates land on the basis of economic efficiency by imposing a procedure that equalizes shadow prices. And third, the proposed model is an optimization model that fully accounts for the spatial and sectoral relationships of multiplier effects determining land use demand.     

Stadium attendance and television audience demand in English league football

Demand studies of professional team sports have traditionally focused on stadium attendance; however, advances in broadcasting mean that teams generate revenue from stadium goers and broadcasters alike. Previous studies of demand have focused on stadium attendance and television audiences, but none have assessed the demand for match‐day attendances and demand by television audiences jointly. This study models match‐day attendances and television audiences using data from tier‐two of English league football. It shows that while televised matches depress stadium attendances, ceteris paribus, there is an important feedback in that larger stadium attendances have positive impacts on the size of television audiences. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reverse Pricing and Revenue Sharing in a Vertical Market

Advancing in information technology has empowered firms with unprecedented flexibility when interacting with each other. We compare welfare results in a vertical market (e.g., manufacturers and retailers) for several types of pricing strategies depending upon the following: (1) which side (retailers or manufacturers) chooses retail prices; and (2) whether there is revenue sharing or linear pricing between the two sides. Our results are as follows. Under revenue sharing, retail prices (and thus industry profits) are higher if and only if they are chosen by the side featuring less competition. Under linear pricing, however, retail prices are higher if they are chosen by the side featuring more competition (for linear demand functions). Relative to linear pricing, revenue sharing always leads to lower retail prices, higher consumer surplus and social surplus. However, the comparison on industry profits depends on the demand elasticity ratios. Revenue sharing raises industry profits when the elasticity ratios are small, but the results are reversed when the elasticity ratios are large. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Higher education: marketing in a quasi‐commercial service industry

The UK Government is promoting widening participation and asking universities to develop their student intake of 18–30 year‐olds by 50 per cent by 2010. The financing of these changes is encouraging a marketing emphasis shift, as funding is reduced and alternative revenue methods sought. Traditional marketing of charitable educational institutions sought to ensure sufficient student enrolments for solely government‐funded core activities. Further marketing is now seen in quasi‐commercial activities. This paper investigates the need for a further marketing approach to satisfy these government policy changes. Using the comparative method, the paper looks at the complexity of the issues around US and UK higher education and their revenue value conflicts, marketing perspectives and, finally, the differences in perspectives and expectations between commerce and education. As the matter is current and ongoing, the main form of collecting evidence is through personal interview and recent media releases. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Demand for durable and nondurable goods,environmental policy and consumer welfare

If a tax on energy affects the demand for a nondurable good, the stock of a durable good, and the proportion of the energy consumption per unit of service of the durable good, an integrated approach for investigating consumer demand for durables and nondurables is required. The purpose of this paper is to employ the concept of a variable expenditure function with quasi-fixed durable goods as arguments in order to derive a demand system for nondurable goods in prices of the nondurables, in the stocks of durables, and in variable expenditure. From the envelope condition desired stocks of durables can be calculated and investment demand for durables can be determined. For an application we choose a variable expenditure function based on the almost ideal demand specification, and evaluate alternative environmental policy measures using the equivalent variation for comparing the welfare effects.     

Daily peak electrical load forecasting with a multi-resolution approach

In the context of smart grids and load balancing, daily peak load forecasting has become a critical activity for stakeholders in the energy industry. An understanding of peak magnitude and timing is paramount for the implementation of smart grid strategies such as peak shaving. The modelling approach proposed in this paper leverages high-resolution and low-resolution information to forecast daily peak demand size and timing. The resulting multi-resolution modelling framework can be adapted to different model classes. The key contributions of this paper are (a) a general and formal introduction to the multi-resolution modelling approach, (b) a discussion of modelling approaches at different resolutions implemented via generalised additive models and neural networks, and (c) experimental results on real data from the UK electricity market. The results confirm that the predictive performance of the proposed modelling approach is competitive with that of low- and high-resolution alternatives.     

Public Spending, Land Taxes and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of the Adequacy of Land as a Tax Base

Abstract . Site value taxation is often cited as desirable on efficiency grounds, but is all too often dismissed for alleged lack of revenue potential. This paper empirically tests the revenue adequacy of site value taxation. Revenue adequacy in this study is defined as the ability of the tax base to keep pace with community expenditure needs. The paper concludes that communities with higher than average rates of capital growth and with a relatively constrained land area will find land taxes when subsituted for present property taxes, quite adequate for future as well as present needs.     

Secular stagnation ‐ are we stuck in Summers' long winter?

• Stunningly low global long‐term bond yields provide some credence to a secular stagnation view of the world. We present an analytical framework – culminating in a simple scorecard – for assessing the extent to which purported drivers and manifestations of secular stagnation match global economic and financial developments and we compare with a complementary narrative focusing on balance sheet boom and bust. We find some support for each, but think global rates will not stay as low for as long as markets price in.
• Larry Summers has used the term to refer to a situation where demand and supply for savings deliver very low equilibrium real interest rates. The bulge in middle‐aged savers, falling prices of investment goods, and flows of savings ‘uphill’ from emerging markets may have all led to real rates trending much lower in recent decades.
• Another version of the story is that slow technical progress depresses demand for borrowing, and pushes down on real rates. This is less compelling, and based more on anecdote than anything else. There are as many reasons to be optimistic, as pessimistic, about the supply side.
• There are holes in the secular stagnation narrative. Until very recently, G7 savings rates have trended down rather than up, partly because of another decades‐long trend of financial innovation. Furthermore, few economists, nor the Fed or the BoE, expect policy rates in the US or UK to stay low for as long as is priced in to markets.
• A complementary narrative would stress the role of the credit‐fuelled mega‐boom and subsequent balance sheet blow out and Great Recession, and then the long road to financial repair. This is more consistent with the path of savings rates over recent decades, and the policy response – including QE – can explain much of the rest.
• We see the two explanations as complementary and reinforcing. In global terms, they appear no better or worse than each other. Comparing across countries, Japan comes closest to resembling secular stagnation, followed by EZ, US and UK, according to our scorecard.
• We think ultra‐low long rates will not be borne out by the future path of short rates, but acknowledge a significant risk they might, for example, if monetary policy remains too tight on average because of zero bound effects on interest rates and limited scope for fiscal accommodation.

     

广西电网调峰电源的探讨与选择

当前,广西电力需求不断增长,峰谷差加大及电源结构调整将使电力系统的调峰问题愈来愈突出,电网的调峰压力日益加大,解决电网的调峰问题已成为广西电网面临的一个重要课题。文章对广西电网全年逐月典型日负荷曲线进行模拟计算,充分考虑电力系统中各类电站的技术经济能力,分析广西电网近远期调峰需求,比较论证现有和规划调峰电源建设条件,提出可行的调峰电源建设方案,对广西抽水蓄能电站的布局提出合理建议。     

The investment decision of a Multinational Firm under uncertain quantity restrictions

In this paper we analyze the allocative investment decisions of a Multinational Firm (MNF) when it faces uncertain quantity restrictions such as a voluntary export restraint or a quota imposed by the host government. The model with uncertain quantity restrictions is analyzed further by introducing additional uncertainties such as a foreign tax rate, transfer prices, foreign exchange rates and foreign demand. The MNF invests more in the host country due to uncertain quantity restrictions. The risk averse MNF invests more in the host country despite its uncertain tax rate if the transfer price is less than the expected marginal revenue loss due to the uncertain quantity restriction. The uncertain transfer price leads the MNF to invest more in the foreign country if the tax rates are dissimilar between the two countries. Foreign demand uncertainty and foreign exchange rates uncertainty have the same effects on capital allocation between the host country and home country. In particular, we derive the condition under which the direction of investment is unambiguous.     

COMPARING ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF HETEROGENEITY IN CONSUMER CHOICE BEHAVIOR

When modeling demand for differentiated products, it is vital to adequately capture consumer taste heterogeneity, But there is no clearly preferred approach. Here, we compare the performance of six alternative models. Currently, the most popular are mixed logit (MIXL), particularly the version with normal mixing (N‐MIXL), and latent class (LC), which assumes discrete consumer types. Recently, several alternative models have been developed. The 'generalized multinomial logit' (G‐MNL) extends N‐MIXL by allowing for heterogeneity in the logit scale coefficient. Scale heterogeneity logit (S‐MNL) is a special case of G‐MNL with scale heterogeneity only. The 'mixed‐mixed' logit (MM‐MNL) assumes a discrete mixture‐of‐normals heterogeneity distribution. Finally, one can modify N‐MIXL by imposing theoretical sign constraints on vertical attributes. We call this 'T‐MIXL'. We find that none of these models dominates the others, but G‐MNL, MM‐MNL and T‐MIXL typically outperform the popular N‐MIXL and LC models. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.