Water markets design and evidence from experimental economics

Market mechanisms are gaining increasing acceptance all over the world as a way of making more efficient use of scarce water resources. Designing regulatory frameworks that ensure both inter- and intra-temporal efficient allocations is a daunting task, especially if supply is stochastic and there is ample storage capacity. In addition to defining tradable rights, specific provisions must regulate the use of reservoirs. Commonly, water statutes include provisions that establish asymmetries regarding the allocation of water, and market restrictions that ban water trading across different users. In this article, we use data collected in a laboratory to test two specific market regulations included in the 1999 Water reform in Spain. First, junior right holders are not allowed to buy water from senior users. Second, the law does not explicitly define water rights over units left in reservoirs for the following season. Results suggest that trading restrictions among water right holders lead to welfare losses for senior users. It is shown that removing this restriction would increase senior right holders’ benefits, without reducing those of junior users. Results show that defining water rights over saved units across periods would increase the average stock levels of reservoirs, and reduce market price instability. The lessons learned from the Spanish experience are applicable to settings characterized by unstable natural water supply and the availability of large storage facilities.      

Introducing the mini-futures contract on Ibex 35: implications for price discovery and volatility transmission

This paper analyzes the effects of the introduction of the mini-futures contract in the Spanish stock index futures market. The objective of the paper is twofold: (a) to analyze the potential destabilizing effect of the mini futures trading activity on the distribution of spot returns, and (b) to test whether the mini futures contract significantly contributes to the price discovery process. A non-parametric approach is used to estimate the density function of spot return conditional to both spot and futures trading volume. Empirical findings using 15-min intraday data reveal that the mini futures trading activity enhances the price discovery function of the derivative market and does not destabilize spot prices. A preliminary version of this paper has been previously published as a working paper of the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, WP-EC 2004-13. M. Illueca and Juan A. Lafuente acknowledge financial support from Spanish ministry of Science and Technology through grants SEJ-2005-02776, and both SEJ2006-14354 and BEC-2003-03965, respectively.     

Crude Oil Futures as an Indicator of Market Changes: A Graphical Analysis

This study investigates the changing relationship between price and volume traded of short- and long-maturity NYMEX light sweet crude oil futures contracts and major changes in the physical crude oil market during the last decade. Monthly series for the #1-month to 84-month out maturity contracts are generated from daily price and volume data for NYMEX West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures contracts for the period from January 2000 to the middle of 2009. 3-D graphical analysis of the futures prices, contract volumes, maturity dates, and time is used to demonstrate the changing trading volume pattern and evolution of the shape of futures price term structure across various contract maturities in different market regimes. The study observes the impacts of both May 2004, when excess production capacity reached nearly zero, and September 2006, when electronic trading was implemented on the NYMEX WTI futures markets. This analysis will be used to determine if futures contract information can provide an early indication of market regime shifts and improve short-run crude oil spot price forecast models.     

Measuring the impacts of cash settlement: A stochastic volatility approach

Prior to 1986, any opening position on feeder cattle futures contract must be settled with physical delivery after the last trading day. Due to dwindling commercial interests, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) subsequently replaced the system with the cash settlement method. It was argued that cash settlement would help improve the convergence between cash and futures prices and reduce the basis variability. In this paper, we adopted stochastic volatility (SV) models to investigate this conjecture. The models allow for time-varying volatility. We found strong evidence of reduction in basis and in basis variance after cash settlement. Moreover, cash settlement induced a change in the structural relationship between cash and futures prices. The futures market has become more efficient after the change in settlement methods.     

Are natural gas spot and futures prices predictable?

We answer two questions concerning natural gas spot and futures prices. The first is: Can natural gas futures prices predict natural gas spot prices? The second is: Are natural gas spot and futures prices weak form efficient or can they be predicted based on examination of historical data? To answer these questions, we use daily data for Henry Hub natural gas spot and futures prices. Our answer to the first question is that natural gas futures prices do not predict the magnitude of future natural gas spot prices any better than what would be predicted by a random walk model. This result has important implications for many financial analysts and policy institutions that have used commodity futures prices to predict movements in spot prices. The answer to the second question is that when we apply a unit root test that allows for heteroskedasticity and two structural breaks, natural gas spot and futures prices are predictable. We then simulate a contrarian trading strategy for spot and futures prices to show under what circumstances trading in spot and futures prices are also profitable. The results point to the need to accommodate heteroskedasticity when applying unit root tests to model energy spot and futures prices with high-frequency data, such as daily data.     

碳排放权交易市场的信息流动关系——基于EUA市场和CER市场的实证研究

基于Granger因果关系检验方法和MGARCH-BEKK模型,从报酬溢出和波动溢出的角度,研究国际碳排放权交易市场中的主要商品———EUAs和sCERs各自的期货价格与现货价格之间以及两者的期货价格之间的信息流动关系。结果表明:两个市场的现货市场始终都处于价格信息中心,期货市场的价格发现功能较弱甚至未体现;信息波动溢出方面,EUA市场中期货市场处于波动信息中心,而CER市场中现货市场处于波动信息中心;EUA的期货市场与CER的期货市场之间存在相互的价格溢出效应与波动溢出效应,但EUA市场的期货价格对CER市场具有更大的波动溢出效应。     

Financial frictions and the futures pricing puzzle

In perfect capital markets, the futures price of an asset should be an unbiased forecast of its realized spot price when the contract matures. In reality, futures prices are often higher for some assets and lower for others. However, there is no stability in the relationship between futures prices and the realized spot prices. This instability has been a puzzle in the existing financial literature. The key to this puzzle may lie in the nature of the model and the lack of market imperfections. In this study, we take a theoretical approach in a dynamic multi-period environment. We incorporate competition between disparate economic agents and impose financial frictions (i.e., imperfections) that are in the form of hedging and borrowing limits on them. Our model gives rise to multiple equilibria, each with unique market clearing prices, with the market switching between these equilibria. Our analysis incorporates a comprehensive consideration of the risks faced by the futures markets participants (i.e., speculators and hedgers) and leads to a better understanding of the puzzle.     

ON THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF CREDIT ARRANGEMENTS

This article studies the welfare effects of credit arrangements and how these effects depend on the trading mechanism and inflation. In a competitive market, credit arrangements can be welfare reducing, because high consumption by credit users drives up the price level, reducing consumption by money users who are subject to a binding liquidity constraint. By adopting an optimal trading mechanism, however, these welfare implications can be overturned. Both price discrimination and nonlinear pricing are essential features of an optimal mechanism.     

International trade and “Catching up with the Joneses”: Are the consumption patterns convergent?

We use a dynamic international trade model to analyse the implications of international trade for agents’ preferences and economic growth. This model is based on the home market effect with external habit formation (“catching up with the Joneses”) and “learning by doing” in production. We demonstrate the following: the historical composition of consumption in countries determines industrialization after trade; the preferences of agents converge after trade, independent of the economic results; and the welfare effects of trade may be positive or negative depending on trading partner characteristics. In some scenarios, autarky is strictly preferred to trade. Thus, international trade does not necessarily imply greater welfare, as is the typical result in a static context under CES preferences.     

Option moneyness and price disagreements

This article investigates price disagreements between actual and options-implied futures prices by considering option moneyness. Out-of-the-money (OTM) options trading induces price disagreements more frequently than at-the-money (ATM) options trading. Examining price adjustments to eliminate disagreements, we find that the futures (options) market tends to move less (more) for OTM option disagreements than ATM option disagreements, suggesting that the price dynamics of OTM options are less informative and noisier than that of ATM options.     

Search cost,trading strategies and optimal market structure

The theory of Walrasian equilibrium yields a set of prices at which the aggregate competitive demand for each commodity equals its aggregate competitive supply. However, even at equilibrium prices the theory of competitive equilibrium does not explicitly offer explanation regarding the manner in which trades are actually executed. This paper considers a model where trade takes place in a decentralized fashion and examines in a dynamic game-theoretic framework, the role of social institution of money and markets in facilitating exchange. The steady state Nash equilibrium derived in the paper demonstrates how, depending on the level of transaction costs associated with a market setup (synonymously, trading posts to exchange possible pairs of goods) appropriate monetary trade emerges, which like a hub and spoke network (Starr and Stinchcombe, 1999) makes some markets non-functioning and in equilibrium only the markets having trade through the medium of exchange continue to exist. However, despite the obvious advantages of a market setup in reducing search costs, pure random search for a complementary trading partner (as considered by Ostroy and Starr, 1974; Kiyotaki and Wright , 1989; and others) prevails in many economies, especially, in many developing economies. This paper models this feature of developing economies by introducing differences in transaction costs across agents and shows why sustainable equilibria might exist exhibiting random search for certain commodities even in the presence of established markets.     

Contract settlement specification and price discovery: Empirical evidence in Australia individual share futures market

This study applies Geweke [J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 76 (1982) 304] measures of information flow and dependence between Australian individual share futures (ISF) contract and its underlying stock market to investigate whether the price discovery function of futures price has been enhanced after the switch of futures contracts from cash settlement to physical delivery. It is found that the spot market leads the futures market as the futures trading volume is rather small. Further tests suggest that the switch from cash settlement to physical delivery in the ISF contracts has reinforced the information flow from the spot market to the futures market.     

Emissions Trading, Wealth Transfers and the Wounded Bull Scenario in Power Generation

Electricity generators accept that emissions trading is fundamental to meeting CO₂ reduction targets. But unless a percentage of permits are allocated, existing generators will face non-trivial wealth transfers. Seldom contemplated in academic works are the adverse economic consequences of an all-auction approach to emissions trading. Using Victoria to illustrate, we find that once CO₂ prices exceed $17.50/t, the marginal coal generator facing large wealth transfers will withhold generating capacity to raise prices and recoup stranded investments, thus becoming a 'wounded bull' in the market place. This has material welfare implications with modelling results indicate an intermediate-run 300 per cent increase in wholesale power prices.     

Optimal transmission switching: economic efficiency and market implications

Traditionally, transmission assets for bulk power flow in the electric grid have been modeled as fixed assets in the short run, except during times of forced outages or maintenance. This traditional view does not permit reconfiguration of the transmission grid by the system operators to improve system performance and economic efficiency. The current push to create a smarter grid has brought to the forefront the possibility of co-optimizing generation along with the network topology by incorporating the control of transmission assets within the economic dispatch formulations. Unfortunately, even though such co-optimization improves the social welfare, it may be incompatible with prevailing market design practices since it can create winners and losers among market participants and it has unpredictable distributional consequences in the energy market and in the financial transmission rights (FTR) market. In this paper, we first provide an overview of recent research on optimal transmission switching, which demonstrates the substantial economic benefit that is possible even while satisfying standard N−1 reliability requirements. We then discuss various market implications resulting from co-optimizing the network topology with generation and we examine how transmission switching may affect locational Marginal Prices (LMPs), i.e., energy prices, and revenue adequacy in the FTR market when FTR settlements are financed by congestion revenues.     

Contractual restrictions on insider trading: a welfare analysis

Summary. This paper analyzes the welfare effects of permitting firms to negotiate contractually the right to allow corporate insiders to trade shares in the firm on private information. A computational framework is employed to (i) analyze formally the effects of insider trading on managerial investment choice, the informational efficiency of stock prices, and the welfare of all investor types; and (ii) examine the effectiveness of various compensation schemes (such as stock and insider trading rights) to mitigate conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders. I show that shareholders will typically choose not to grant insider trading rights to managers. This decision is socially optimal. Received: September 23, 2000; revised version: December 12, 2000     

Does economic policy uncertainty matter for commodity market in China? Evidence from quantile regression

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the effect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on China’s agricultural and metal commodity futures returns across quantiles. We address this issue using the panel quantile regression approach, which allows for a more complete analysis of various conditions in the commodity market (i.e. bearish, normal, and bullish markets). Our empirical results reveal that domestic EPU shocks have a significantly negative effect on agricultural futures returns in bearish markets and a significantly positive effect on metal futures returns in bullish markets. The impacts of both domestic and U.S. EPU shocks on commodity markets are heterogeneous across quantiles and are sector specific. Additionally, by isolating positive and negative EPU shocks, the regression and test results indicate an asymmetric response of commodity futures prices in bullish markets. Moreover, our findings indicate that the metal futures market has a higher financialisation level than the agricultural futures market. The findings can be utilized by policymakers and investors.     

Futures price dynamics of CO2 emission allowances

We analyze the pricing and lead–lag relationship between spot and futures prices of CO₂ emission allowances in the EU emission trading scheme. We show that the cost-of-carry hypothesis between spot and futures prices holds for the trial period. In this period we focus on how fast a deviation from equilibrium due to shocks is restored. We derive testable restrictions on the loading coefficients and the short term dynamics within a vector error correction model. Previous studies in this field did not take into account the effects of lagged differences in the determination of the speed of adjustment. The results indicate that deviations from equilibrium are restored faster for the futures price series maturing in 2006 than for the futures price series maturing in 2007. Furthermore, we conduct an impulse response analysis using local projections with conditional confidence bands. Finally, we give an outlook for the Kyoto commitment period which is already running. In this time period so far we find that the cost-of-carry hypothesis does not hold.     

The links between international parity conditions and Granger causality: a study of exchange rates and prices

This article provides a simple equilibrium model of a futures market. Since the futures market is a zero sum game, some firms will, in equilibrium, end up being ‘speculators’ who bet against ‘hedgers’. We show it is firms that have high initial capital and/or poor production opportunities that are the most likely candidates to bet against the hedgers. In equilibrium, these groups earn a premium in order to provide this insurance so that speculating increases value. We also provide some results that imply an inverted U shaped relationship between trading volume and the level of futures prices. Empirical evidence from the S&P futures contract provides strong empirical support for this theoretical result.     

Dynamic Relationships among GCC Stock Markets and Nymex Oil Futures

Daily relationships among stock markets of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, excluding Qatar, form two equilibrium relationships with varying predictive power. The Saudi market leads, followed by Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. Kuwait, which is dominated by momentum traders, and Oman have the weakest links with the other GCC markets. Only the Saudi index can predict—and be predicted by—New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures prices. Therefore these markets are candidates for diversified regional portfolios at the country level. The trading day effect is weak for all GCC markets and oil futures prices but remains consistent with findings for the U.S. stock market. (JEL C22 , F3 , Q49 )     

An Experimental Study of Electronic Bulletin Board Trading for Emission Permits

This paper reports a laboratory experiment that studies several features of a tradable emission permit program recently implemented in the Los Angeles area. The experiment focuses on the new Electronic Bulletin Board trading institution, in which firms publicly post proposed terms of trade. Potential trading partners can review this information online, and transactions are executed following bilateral negotiation. The experiment includes trading restrictions implemented in the regulations due to the geography of Los Angeles. We find that the bulletin board market performs well and that prices reflect market conditions as accurately as in the continuous double auction trading institution.