Trouble in Market Paradise: Development of the Regional Transmission Operator

Regional transmission organizations (RTOs) have evolved from “power pool” arrangements between utilities to complex organizations that operate a region’s transmission system and power markets. These RTOs are administered with only peripheral public input. This paper reflects on how RTOs, as a result, have developed very complex market structures that few can or do understand. An RTO’s capacity construct is used to illustrate the point of this complexity and ad hoc nature. The paper also discusses reforms that are needed to align the RTOs behavior with Harry M. Trebing’s public interest regulatory philosophy.     

Let's Get Physical! Or Financial? A Study of Electricity Transmission Rights

I test experimentally the predictions of neoclassical theory for a radial electricity market without rights to the transmission line, with rights that give the owner a financial right to a share of the transmission congestion charges collected by a network operator, and with physical rights which give the owner the exclusive right to utilize a portion of the transmission line. I find that physical rights lead to more right market signals, diminish some market-power, and remove an uncertainty about electricity transmission congestion better than financial rights or the absence of rights.     

Existing Contradictions and Recommendations to China＇s Insurance Industry Characterized by Low-growth and Low-interest

This article seeks to analyze the contradictions and recommendations to China＇s insurance industry in the context of low-growth and low interest market. Under the pressure caused by the contradictions between the sustainable growth in the insurance premium income and the low ROI, it is very important to solve these contradictions for maintaining a sustainable and steady growth in insurance industry, at the same time, it is also favorable to play a role as a social stabilizer as well as an economic booster for insurance industry. This paper can be divided into four parts： Part I analyzes the five basic characteristics of Chinese low-growth and low-interest insurance industry; part II elaborates the principal contradictions faced by Chinese low-growth and low-interest insurance industry; part III analyzes the development environment of Chinese insurance industry; part IV proposes the recommendations to solve these contradictions.     

Testing the relative purchasing power parity hypothesis: the case of Korea

This study examines the relative purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis using the data from the Korean won–US dollar and the Korean won–Japanese yen foreign exchange markets. We extract proxies for inflation from stock market returns of Korea, the United States and Japan based on the method used by Chowdhry, Roll and Xia in 2005. We explicitly test the relative PPP hypothesis in light of the short-run price volatility using monthly, bimonthly and quarterly data from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2012. Our findings suggest that the empirical test results from the entire sample period do not support the relative PPP hypothesis. However, the results from the sample period excluding the Asian Financial Crisis period show that the relative PPP hypothesis holds for the Korean won–US dollar market with a moderate magnitude of inflation impact, but not for the Korean won–Japanese yen market. Abrupt changes in exchange rates during the crisis period may have affected the relationship between inflation and exchange rates. This result also suggests that factors other than inflation might have affected the Korean won–Japanese yen exchange rate.     

Forward Markets and the Behaviour of the Competitive Firm with Production Flexibility

This paper examines the production and hedging decisions of the competitive firm under output price uncertainty when a forward market for its output is available. The firm possesses production flexibility in that it makes its production decision after the resolution of the output price uncertainty, albeit subject to a capacity constraint on production. We show that the firm optimally acquires a higher level of capacity investment than an otherwise identical firm with no production flexibility. We further show that production flexibility allows the firm to implicitly hedge against its output price risk exposure by the ex post production decision. The firm as such under‐hedges its output price risk exposure in the forward market wherein the forward price contains a non‐positive risk premium.     

创新对我国装备制造业市场势力影响的动态研究

市场势力是竞争力的一种表现形式,拥有较高的市场势力可以扭转市场竞争弱势地位,促进产业持续发展。我国装备制造业的市场势力程度可采用市场集中度指标来测算。选取中国产业分析平台提供的4位数产业作为研究样本的测算结果表明,我国装备制造业市场势力总体处于低集中水平,7个子行业中通信设备、计算机及其他电子设备制造业和仪器仪表及文化、办公用机械制造业的市场集中度最高,行业内大企业的规模优势相对明显。通过向量自回归模型分析了创新活动对我国装备制造业市场势力的影响。结果表明,在短时期内,创新对装备制造业的影响效果不明显,在中长时期,创新对装备制造业市场势力是起促进作用的。     

内蒙古自治区电力工业现状及对策研究

近年来,内蒙古电力工业在中国电力能源供给方面发挥了重要作用。内蒙古电力工业的和谐、清洁、高效发展,不仅保障了首都北京的电力能源供应安全,而且极大地促进了内蒙古当地国民经济、社会的发展。在对内蒙古电力工业发展现状进行分析的基础上,对其存在问题和未来发展方向进行分析和探讨,期望能够对内蒙古电力能源发展战略研究提供有益借鉴和参考。     

保险产业市场结构和市场绩效的关系研究

对于市场结构和市场绩效的关系问题,理论界存在两个较为权威的假说,即市场力量假说和效率结构假说。笔者通过实证分析检验这两个假说在我国保险市场中的适用性,认为在我国保险市场存在传统的市场结构—市场行为—市场绩效假说,保险市场可以通过增加有效率企业的数量,引入竞争机制,最终通过市场自然选择的过程,形成少数新的规模大并能够具有市场力量的保险公司,从而提高保险业的绩效水平。     

电力行业管制改革与市场风险防范

为了提高电力行业的生产效率，许多国家对电力行业进行管制改革和重组，以引入市场和竞争机制，然而由于电力生产的特殊性，电力市场化改革蕴藏着巨大的风险。本文以2000-2001年加州电力危机为例，对电力管制改革所引发的市场风险进行分析，并就我国的电力改革提出了风险防范建议。     

Modelling upstream and downstream market power in bilateral oligopoly

This article develops a general model that estimates market power exertion in a bilateral market relationship for processors and retailers where each may also have market power in their primary input market and output markets, respectively. Monte Carlo experiments are used to generate industry data for market structures such as perfect competition, monopoly, monopsony, bilateral imperfect competition with an integrated processor/retailer, bilateral imperfect competition with separate processor and retailer, and bilateral imperfect competition with four adjacent upstream and downstream markets. Then, new empirical industrial organization models are estimated using the data with models that match the market structure under which the data were generated (true) and with models that reflect alternative market structures (alternative). The general model is derived using the production function approach without imposing the fixed proportion assumption. Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that the general model is preferred to alternative models that presume competitive behaviour by processors in primary input procurement and by retailers in the output market. Results indicate that less flexible models lead to biased market power estimates in the presence of market power in the corresponding input and output markets.     

Contested Continuity: Competing Explanations of the Evolution of the Corporate Form

The history of the electric utility industry provides the occasion for testing competing explanations of the emergence and persistence of the corporate form. This industry, characterized by capital intensity, intense competition, and attractive investment opportunities — along with rapid technological change as well as legal and regulatory changes — provides lessons for newer industries with network externalities. Drawing on the work of institutional economics and business history, I examine the evolution of the electric power industry in the US to test competing explanations of choices of finance and technology.     

The linkages,persistence, asymmetry in the volatility,the price discovery and efficiency,and the effect of the US subprime mortgage financial crisis on the spot and the futures market’s returns: the case of India

This article examines the effects of persistence, asymmetry and the US subprime mortgage crisis on the volatility of the returns and also the price discovery, efficiency and the linkages and causality between the spot and futures volatility by using various classes of the ARCH and GARCH models, and through the Granger’s causality. We have used two indices: one for spot and the other for futures, for the daily data from 12 June 2000 to 30 September 2013 from Nifty stock indices. We have then tested for ARCH effects, and subsequently employed various models of the ARCH and GARCH conditional volatility. The GARCH(1,1) model is found to be significant, and it implies that the returns are not autocorrelated and have ‘short memory’. It supports the hypothesis of the efficiency of the markets. The negative ‘news’ has more significant effect on volatility, corroborating the ‘leverage impact’ in finance on market volatility. We have also tested the volatility spillover effects. The two methods we employed support the spillover effects and the causality is bidirectional. We also have used the dummy variable for the US subprime mortgage financial crisis and found that they are statistically significant. Indian stock market is thus integrated to the world stock markets.     

碳市场与股票市场间的风险溢出效应研究

研究碳市场与股票市场间的风险溢出,深层次揭示其中的内在机制与规律,对于有效防范碳金融风险具有重要意义。本文基于广义预测误差方差分解构建溢出指数,从静态和动态两个层面捕捉中国碳市场与电力、材料、房地产、工业、金融、传统能源、新能源等股票板块市场之间的风险溢出强度和方向;在此基础上,进一步从复杂网络视角构建“碳-股票”系统的风险溢出网络,识别风险的中心与演化。结果表明：碳市场与股票市场之间存在一定的风险溢出,碳市场是各股票板块市场的风险净接收方,但不同板块的影响具有非对称性,其中新能源市场的影响最大。在宏观经济波动和有关政策出台时,碳市场与股票市场之间的风险溢出也会发生波动;工业板块市场是“碳-股票”系统的风险中心,基于上述结论提出了相关政策建议。     

我国省级火力发电行业的方向阻塞效应实证分析

火力发电中投入过量带来的阻塞效应给生产系统带来较大的破坏性,引发发电量的减少和污染排放的增加,这是一种能源资源极度浪费的现象。针对该问题,文章给出在考虑非期望产出时的方向阻塞效应定义,并构建方向阻塞效应的判别模型,为包括径向在内的所有可能方向提供阻塞效应的判别方法,并将模型应用于2012-2016年省级火力发电行业中。实证结果表明,有效决策单元的投入产出在不同的变动方向上,其方向阻塞效应的状态可能不同;北京、天津、上海、海南、重庆和青海等地在不同的方向下均未发生阻塞效应;河北、山西和内蒙古等地容易发生方向阻塞效应。     

2012年中国A股市场分析报告

本文主要分析了2012年影响中国A股市场的主要因素。首先,简要回顾了2011年中国A股市场;然后,着重分析了影响2012年中国A股市场的主要因素。本文的主要结论是：2012上半年A股市场受国内经济周期性回落以及欧债危机等因素影响会继续振荡下行,下半年在外围经济和市场好转等因素作用下,A股会振荡上行。     

Price-Cost Margins and Profit Rates in New Zealand Electricity Distribution Networks Since 1994: the Cost of Light Handed Regulation

From 1994 to 2003, New Zealands corporatized electricity lines networks operated with no industry regulator, but under the spotlight of mandatory information disclosure. As a result there exists a large body of detailed, audited and publicly available accounting data on the financial performance of these businesses. Using that data, this paper finds that price-cost margins have widened substantially since deregulation. We estimate the extent to which light-handed regulation has allowed profits to exceed the levels which would have been acceptable under the old rate-of-return regulatory framework, and find that the answer is about $200 million per year, on an ongoing basis.We thank colleagues at Victoria University, and two anonymous referees for this journal, for constructive comments on this paper. Any remaining errors are entirely our responsibility.JEL classification: D21; K23; L11; L43; L51     

经济结构调整主体研究

经济结构调整,在我国“十一五”时期要加快步伐。经济结构调整的原动力应来自于企业,在经济结构调整中,企业应居于主体地位。但企业在现实经济结构调整中的地位很复杂。总结国内外历史的、现实的经验教训,必须理清思路,采取措施,切实确立企业在经济结构调整中的主体地位,促使调整的成功。     

电力生产、跨省交易与能源环境效率

将电力生产作为先行于其他社会生产的生产环节,在考虑规模越来越大的电力跨省交易和非期望产出(二氧化碳排放、工业废气总排放量、工业废水总排放量等)的基础上,使用非参数网络数据包络分析模型测算了2000—2012年中国省域能源环境效率。结果表明:与考虑电力生产和跨省交易的网络DEA模型相比,利用传统DEA方法会高估电力输入省的能源环境效率、低估电力输出省的能源环境效率。指出调整电力生产布局和跨省输送网络可以有效提高地区的能源环境效率。