Intermediaries in environmental offset markets: Actions and incentives

Transaction cost theory and application tells us that when buyers and sellers in a market incur transaction costs, intermediaries may become involved. Specifically, intermediaries influence the cause of the transaction costs to buyers and sellers such that transaction costs are reduced. In this paper we assess if and how this occurs for a number of case study government created and private emergent intermediaries in Australian environmental offset markets. We find that the causes of transaction costs to buyers and sellers in offset markets – asset specificity, uncertainty and transaction frequency are influenced downwards by intermediaries. The degree of influence depends on the nature of the good traded in the offset market. We also assessed if the public intermediaries studied were operating in the offset markets to reduce the incidence of probity hazard (poor transactions) from private intermediaries. We found that this was not the case.     

农业水权市场综合框架体系及案例分析

以较为成熟的水权市场建设和水权制度改革理论与实践为支撑,以对多个农业水权市场的实地调研为基础,提出融合制度基础、经济动力、交易参与人、第三方保护和设施基础等5大模块,涵括14个要素的农业水权市场综合框架体系,阐明了各要素之间的内在联系。以澳大利亚维多利亚州、智利Limarí流域和中国石羊河流域为例,在农业水权市场综合框架体系下对3个国家农业水权市场进行分析,进而从水权法律体系、水资源产权管理制度、水权信息共享度、水权交易媒介等多个方面总结出建立健全农业水权市场的必要条件及建议,旨在给我国积极探索建立农业水权市场的决策者们提供参考。     

Inventories and Public Information in Private Negotiation: A Laboratory Market Study

Using laboratory markets, this research investigates the impacts of reporting different kinds of aggregated trade information to buyers and sellers who conduct transactions through bilateral/private negotiation. There are a limited number of bargaining rounds or matches between buyer and seller pairs. Sellers hold a perishable inventory before negotiations begin. We find that knowledge of trades, along with price, improves the coordination and bargaining position of buyers. Trade prices are lower and buyer earnings are higher, relative to the no-information treatment or when just-past quantities or just-past prices are reported. Market efficiency declines as public information is reported.     

Food Safety and Adverse Selection in Rural Maize Markets

Without enforced standards or reliable third-party verification, food safety threats such as pesticide residues and aflatoxin contamination are generally unobservable or only partially observable to both buyers and sellers, especially of staple foods in rural maize markets in sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, sellers have more information about food quality than do buyers. Such information asymmetries can impede market development and undermine human health. We study farm household behaviour in the context of imperfect food safety information. We pool observations obtained from 707 food storage containers maintained by 309 farm households in Benin, surveyed following the maize harvests of 2011/2012 and 2013/2014. Our results indicate that when a household perceives a food safety risk associated with application of insecticides, on average it is 33 percentage points less likely to apply insecticides to maize it intends to consume than it is to maize it intends to sell. These individuals are also more likely to sell maize than households without food safety concerns. Results highlight the potential value of improved storage technologies and quality control to promote market transactions and reduce hidden health risks.     

Water markets in Australia: an experimental analysis of alternative market mechanisms

Formal water markets in Australia began as uniform price open call markets. As water markets in Australia continue to expand and mature, water managers are introducing double auction water markets, believing that such markets will produce more efficient outcomes. It is therefore timely and policy relevant to explore the relative merits of the two auction mechanisms in context. To date, experimental comparisons of these auction mechanisms have been based on balanced, single unit designs with defined buyers and sellers. However, many resource markets involve trade in multiple unit, often thin, double auction markets. This paper questions whether a multiple unit double auction performs as well as the more traditional open multiple unit call auction in a series of thin water market experiments.     

Is there evidence of insider trading in Australian water markets?

Insider trading is a much studied form of market manipulation in the financial market literature. However, studies addressing the issue of insider trading in resource markets, and in particular water markets, are rare. This study investigates the occurrence of insider trading practices around important water market allocation announcements in the Goulburn temporary water market trading zone in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia, which is one of the largest and longest operating water market districts in the world. Nine years of daily water allocation volume and price transactions between 2008 and 2017 are modelled, with some evidence found of abnormal price movements in the 3 or 5 days preceding water allocation announcements, and especially before the introduction of insider trading rules in 2014. However, although the results do suggest some very weak statistically significant evidence that insider trading may still be present in Goulburn water markets post‐2014, it is just as feasible that our results may also reflect an increased sophistication of trader behaviour over time.     

基于两部门模型的黄河水权转换影响因素研究

运用模型分析法,在黄河水权转换的现实约束条件基础上建立了水权转换的两部门模型,通过系统分析水权转换双方的成本、收益及行为选择,归纳总结了影响水权转换实施的因素,包括初始水权界定、水权转换价格、交易费用、节水成本、企业水资源生产效率等,提出了促进黄河水权转换规范发展的建议：进一步明晰和保护初始水权,充分保障相关者的利益,构建黄河水权转换市场。     

Asymmetric information in cattle auctions: the problem of revaccinations

We analyze the problem of asymmetric information between buyers and sellers in cattle auctions, using the problem of revaccinations as the point of departure. We present a simple model to show that if buyers do not know and cannot verify whether sellers have vaccinated their animals, then they may consider revaccination. Revaccination is only a part of the broader problem of information asymmetry that includes other quality issues and costs that can be saved, thereby affecting the welfare of both buyers and sellers. We consider structural characteristics of ranching, traditions, and consumers' preferences as well as proposals regarding third‐party certification to argue that the problem of asymmetric information in cattle auctions is a persistent one. We also argue for a comprehensive empirical study of the incidence and impacts of buyer revaccination.     

Guanxi Networks,Buyer-Seller Relationships,and Farmers' Participation in Modern Vegetable Markets in China

The aim of this study is to investigate the joint effects of small-scale farmers’ guanxi networks and buyer-seller relationships on their marketing behavior in China. A survey of 167 vegetable farmers shows that farmers' guanxi networks have significant effect on trusting relationship building with buyers and on their investment behavior for transactional specific assets. Guanxi networks also help to improve farmers’ participation in modern high-value markets (e.g., supermarkets and international markets) and encourage relational transactions. Farmers’ modern market participation will be further enhanced by trusting buyer-seller relationships with buyers and complying with buyers' quality requirements. The application of formal contracts, on the other hand, is closely related to farmers’ trusting relationships with buyers and transactional specific assets for vegetable transactions. Some policy implications are discussed.     

Spot water markets and risk in water supply

Water availability patterns in semiarid regions are typically extremely variable. Even in basins with a highly developed infrastructure, users are subject to unreliable water supplies, incurring substantial economic losses during periods of scarcity. More flexible instruments, such as voluntary exchanges of water among users, can help users to reduce risk exposure. This article looks at the effects of spot water markets on the economic risk caused by water availability variations. Our theoretical and empirical risk analyses are based on the random profits of water users. Profit probability density functions are formally and graphically characterized for both water sellers and buyers under several possible market outcomes. We conclude from this analysis that, where water supply is stochastic, water markets unambiguously reduce both parties' risk exposure. The empirical study is conducted on an irrigation district in the Guadalquivir Valley (Southern Spain), where there is a high probability of periods of extreme water scarcity. Water demand functions for the district representative irrigators and a spatial equilibrium model are used to simulate market exchanges and equilibrium. This programming model is combined with statistical simulation techniques. We show that the profit probability distribution of a representative irrigator is modified if water exchanges are authorized, leading to risk reductions. Results also indicate that if the market were extended to several districts and users that are subject to varying hydrological risk exposure, extremely low‐profit events would be less likely to occur. In sum, we show that exchanging water in annual spot markets can reduce farmers' economic vulnerability caused by water supply variability across irrigation seasons. These results support the water policy reform carried out in Spain in 1999 to allow for voluntary water exchanges among right holders.     

Buyer preferences for sheep and goats in southern Nigeria: A hedonic price analysis

A survey of two rural markets in southwest Nigeria over 14 months showed that supplies, sales and prices of sheep and goats varied widely during the period with a sharp peak during the Muslim festival of' Eid-el-Kabir and a smaller peak during the Christmas-New Year period. Local West African Dwarf (WAD) sheep and goats and northern Y'ankasa sheep and Red Sokoto goats were traded in the markets and animals were purchased for rearing, trading, ceremonies, butchering/catering, sacrifice, and festivals. There were significant differences between species/breeds purchased for various purposes. A hedonic price model was fitted to determine factors influencing price. After adjustments were made for age, weight, sex, time of transaction and market, WAD sheep commanded higher prices than WAD goats and Red Sokoto goats for all purposes except for butchering/catering; Red Sokoto goats commanded similar or lower prices than WAD goats depending on the purpose for purchase; and Y'ankasa sheep, principally purchased for the Eid-el-Kabir festival, commanded marginally higher prices than WAD sheep. The market share of WAD sheep is currently small and is under competition from northern sheep and goats, so increased production of WAD sheep in the south will benefit both producers and consumers in the area. In general, the results indicate that buyers have preferences for specific breeds and species for specific purposes, so producers and sellers may benefit by targeting specific buyer categories and times of the year.     

Integrated economic-hydrologic water modeling at the basin scale: the Maipo river basin

Increasing competition for water across sectors increases the importance of the river basin as the appropriate unit of analysis to address the challenges facing water resources management; and modeling at this scale can provide essential information for policy makers in their resource allocation decisions. This paper introduces an integrated economic‐hydrologic modeling framework that accounts for the interactions between water allocation, farmer input choice, agricultural productivity, non‐agricultural water demand, and resource degradation in order to estimate the social and economic gains from improvement in the allocation and efficiency of water use. The model is applied to the Maipo river basin in Chile. Economic benefits to water use are evaluated for different demand management instruments, including markets in tradable water rights, based on production and benefit functions with respect to water for the agricultural and urban‐industrial sectors.     

农用水权期权交易的触发机制研究

目的 农用水权期权交易作为一种创新的水权交易模式,是金融助力绿色发展的新渠道。探究农用水权期权交易的触发条件及驱动因素,推动水期权交易模式应用于实践,是建设全国统一的用水权交易市场的重要内容。方法 文章基于农用水权期权交易触发这一新视角,构建农业用水者、工业用水者、政府管理部门以及金融机构四方演化博弈模型,运用复制动态方程和Lyapunov第一法则定性研究各博弈主体策略选择的稳定性及系统中可能存在的稳定均衡点,并利用Matlab2018b仿真分析关键要素对整体系统演化的影响。结果 农用水权期权费稍高定价、金融机构降低交易成本、政府管理部门公信力损失的提升、加大对金融机构经济补贴,会增加农业用水者、工业用水者、政府管理部门以及金融机构参与农用水权期权交易的概率。结论 农用水权期权交易的触发需要发挥政府职能,突破门槛效应。首先,通过对金融机构的经济补贴,激励金融机构选择创新金融业务;其次,金融机构发挥中介作用,通过合理定价农用水权期权费及降低交易成本的路径,触发农业用水者和工业用水者选择农用水权期权交易;此外,公信力损失会进一步增强对政府管理部门的约束力,最终实现农用水权期权交易触发的良性循环。     

Transaction Costs and Cattle Marketing: The Information Content of Seller-Provided Presale Data at Bull Auctions

At sales of breeding bulls, prospective buyers have strong incentives to undertake presale measurement activities. To reduce these transaction costs, sellers often provide information on sale bulls. We examine the information content of two measures of the expected performance of the bulls and find that within a given herd, older, simpler measures of performance contain more information about prices (from buyers' perspectives) than newer, more sophisticated measures known as expected progeny differences, or EPDs. We also find, however, that buyers appear to pay considerable attention to annual changes in herd-average EPD values when comparing animals from different sellers.     

Economic development and farmland protection: An assessment of rewarded land conversion quotas trading in Zhejiang,China

Facing a substantial loss of farmland in the reform era, the Chinese central government established a highly centralized land management system in 1998 to guarantee its capacity to meet the domestic food needs. In order to maintain high-speed economic growth, local governments in China made great efforts to circumvent the stringent constraint on land use by launching various innovative land management schemes, among which Zhejiang's rewarded land conversion quotas (RLCQ) trading scheme, a program similar to the transfer of development rights (TDR) in Western countries, has attracted a lot of policy and scholarly attention. In this research, we first provide an overview of China's farmland protection policy and the RLCQ trading scheme in Zhejiang Province. Then, using the system GMM estimator for economic growth models and a panel dataset of 69 local jurisdictions in Zhejiang Province covering the period of 1989–2008, we assess the impacts of RLCQ trading on local economic growth. The empirical results corroborate our hypotheses that participation in land quota trading in general led to faster local economic growth, and that the trading had a stronger and more lasting impact on the economic growth of the quota buyers than on that of the sellers. The analysis suggests that in order to balance the competing goals of economic development and farmland protection, market-based land management tools have a good potential for further development in China and other countries confronting similar challenges.     

Water policy reform in Australia: lessons from the Victorian seasonal water market*

The nature of the seasonal water market is examined using a theoretical model and empirical evidence from the Victorian market. Drivers of the seasonal opportunity cost of water include the underlying nature of investment in the industry made in the context of risky entitlement yields; and the timing and nature of information regarding seasonal water availability and rainfall. Seasonal water markets facilitate the re‐allocation of water availability according to this short‐run opportunity cost. Evidence from the market suggests that transactions costs are low and most of the existing constraints to trade in seasonal allocations are the result of hydrological conditions. Analysis of market data suggests that the price response of the market to water availability is much more pronounced in years of low rainfall. The implications of the paper for wider policy reform are that attention should be paid to improving property rights for the management of intertemporal risk before other reforms, such as broadening of permanent water markets and institutionalising environmental flows, are implemented. This is because these other reforms will change the spatial and temporal pattern of water use and thus affect reliability, which underpins the value of water in irrigated agriculture.     

排污权交易市场中企业行为演化博弈分析

借助演化博弈理论,建立无政府监督管理和存在政府监督管理两种情形下排污权交易企业双方之间的博弈模型,探讨交易双方行为决策的动态演化过程、稳定演化策略及其对应条件。结果表明:在无政府监督管理情况下,排污权交易企业买卖双方只存在唯一稳定演化策略,即(违反规则,违反规则);当政府对排污权交易市场进行监督管理,并制定合理的激励惩罚机制后,交易企业出于自身利益最大化考虑,均逐渐向(遵守规则,遵守规则)演化。为了提升排污权交易市场效率,政府必需加强监督管理,制定有效的激励惩罚机制,完善监督管理体系。     

Compliance with International Food Safety Standards in Kenya's Green Bean Industry: Comparison of a Small- and a Large-scale Farm Producing for Export

European food safety standards have increased the fixed and transactions costs of Kenyan green bean farmers while requiring more stringent quality monitoring by exporting firms. This paired case study finds that large farms use owner equity to invest in improved facilities. Small farms attain scale economies by joining a marketing group that spreads facility investment costs and reduces the transaction cost to buyers of monitoring small farm performance. Green bean buyers meet the asymmetric information problem by close monitoring, the threat of contract termination, and variable product pricing to induce compliance with the standards.     

The Potential Impacts of State Trading Enterprises on World Markets: The Exporting Country Case

Export state trading enterprises (STEs) play an important role in global agricultural trade. STE behavior has significant implications for world food markets, irrespective of whether or not these markets are inherently competitive. Previous literature has suggested that STEs have market power and can earn oligopolistic rents. We find there is no compelling empirical evidence to support this argument. However, we show the cross-commodity effects of export STEs can disrupt competitive world markets, through offering an implicit export subsidy to a downstream industry.     

Asset Pricing in Created Markets

We investigate the applicability of the present-value asset pricing model to fishing quota markets by applying instrumental variable panel data estimation techniques to 15 years of market transactions from New Zealand's individual transferable quota (ITQ) market. In addition to the influence of current fishing rents, we explore the effect of market interest rates, risk, and expected changes in future rents on quota asset prices. The results indicate that quota asset prices are positively related to declines in interest rates, lower levels of risk, expected increases in future fish prices, and expected cost reductions from rationalization under the quota system.