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.     

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。     

Market Power in Laboratory Emission Permit Markets

Many proposals suggesting the use of markets tocontrol pollution assume markets will becompetitive. When markets do not exhibitcompetitive characteristics, however, shouldthey still be expected to result in efficiencyimprovement relative to traditional approaches? This paper employs experimental economicmethods to examine the effect of marketstructure on the use of marketable emissionspermits. Results indicate that in a market withone dominant firm and a number of fringe firms,strategic manipulation occurs repeatedly in thelaboratory as predicted by market power models,undermining the allocative and dynamicefficiency benefits such markets offer. Whenfirms compete in a downstream product marketdominated by the same single firm, marketefficiency can actually be reduced with theimplementation of permit markets. Final marketefficiencies reflect initial endowments and areinfluenced by competitive conditions elsewherein the economy, indicating that policy-makersshould carefully consider whether markets areappropriate in such circumstances.     

Market Power and Welfare in Electricity Markets Employing Tradable Green Certificate Systems

Within the last 25 years, liberalization (deregulation) of electricity markets around the world has been undertaken with the goal of replacing long-standing monopoly rights with fully competitive markets. In addition, many nations have begun employing “tradable green certificate” systems to promote electricity generation from renewable (“green”) energy sources (wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric, etc.), with the primary objective of mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel (“black”) producers. In this paper, we examine some welfare implications of the use of green certificate systems in electricity markets under alternative market structures. We demonstrate that under a wide variety of scenarios, an oligopolistic market structure may perform better in terms of welfare than a competitive market structure. We also demonstrate that there will typically be an optimal level of market power summarized by a conjectural variations parameter that depends on the cost structure of both green and black firms. Our model provides insights into the policy challenge of electricity market design and suggests an approach that could be applied in a more general model.     

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。     

网络经济与市场结构变迁--新经济条件下垄断与竞争关系的检验分析

垄断和竞争的关系是市场结构的中心内容。作为一种新的经济形态,网络经济具有一些背离传统经济规律的经济特性,它导致在网络经济条件下的市场结构呈现出区别于传统经济的新特征,并促成其市场结构双重性的形成,进而带来垄断趋势的加强和竞争属性的变迁。因此,对其市场结构的探讨,有助于更好地理解在新的经济条件下垄断与竞争之间的关系。     

Enforcing Transferable Permit Systems in the Presence of Market Power

We derive an enforcementstrategy for a transferable permit system inthe presence of market power that achievescomplete compliance in a cost-effective manner.We show that the presence of a firm with marketinfluence makes designing an enforcementstrategy more difficult than enforcing aperfectly competitive system. We alsore-consider Hahn's (1984) suggestion that afirm with market influence should be allocatedpermits so that it chooses to not participatein the permit market. When enforcement and itscosts are taken into account, Hahn's suggestiondoes not hold except in a very special case.     

保险市场竞争程度与市场结构的关系研究

本文运用H统计量研究我国财寿险市场的竞争程度,并进一步通过回归分析与相关分析研究竞争程度与市场结构的交互影响因素.研究结果表明,1999-2006年间我国的财险市场可以判断为垄断竞争的市场结构,而同期我国寿险市场则属于寡头垄断的市场结构.2003年保险业费率市场化的改革对财险和寿险都有明显的影响,直接加剧了竞争程度.竞争度与财险市场公司数量正相关,与寿险市场公司数量负相关.竞争度与集中度的关系在财险业为负相关,而在寿险业根据采用不同的集中度指标的不同考察结果会有所不同.     

电力市场中厂网合作的CO2减排调度模式研究

本文通过分析电力市场中独立发电商与电网公司之间的合作激励,提出厂网合作的CO2减排调度模式。基于CO2减排调度规则及独立发电商报价系数对竞价市场的影响,确定了厂网合作方式与约束条件,构建厂网合作模型,求解出最优合作策略,并设计了相应的增量收益分配方案。最后,通过实例检验了所述调度模式的合理性。     

市场过程内生的垄断:市场权势和自然垄断

作为内生的垄断现象,市场权势实际上是争胜竞争过程的结果,并非垄断的市场结构所决定。如果将竞争理解为一个动态过程,市场权势具有竞争性和暂时性。自然垄断现象也是市场过程演化过程中的自然现象,无论源于规模经济还是范围经济,都表明自然垄断具有动态效率特征。除非政府人为阻碍争胜竞争过程的展开,通常市场过程内生力量能够有效制约非政府垄断现象。     

The Emergence of Market Power in Emission Rights Markets: The Role of Initial Permit Distribution

This paper offers an analytical model of emission permit markets in which a large number of regulated emitters participate, and derives formulae that estimate the degree of market distortion. These formulae clearly show the entire dependence of the ratio of market prices to competitive levels on the permit initial distribution as well as the existence of a threshold for effective market power. While the findings challenge a well-known conception of the Coase Theorem, they have significant policy implications vis-à-vis the Kyoto Protocol and the related policy debates on excess emission rights known as hot air.     

电力市场中计及实时电价的电力系统运行风险管理新策略

针对电力市场中用户对实时电价的反应,本文提出一种计及实时电价的电力系统运行风险管理新策略。该策略在评估电力系统运行风险的基础上,对实时电价进行调节,并以电价为信号,刺激用户采取合理的用电结构和方式,从而增强电力系统运行的可靠性。该方法只是弥补了传统方法无法考虑系统运行可靠性的不足,而并非颠覆传统的电价管理方法,所以二者具有很好的衔接性。最后,通过对IEEPRTS测试系统的可靠性进行计算分析,验证了所提算法的有效性。     

Monetary Policy and Market Power in Banking

Applying a spatial competition model to banking, we analyze the effects of the choice of a monetary policy rule by the central bank on banks market power as measured by the Lerner index. We show that a procyclical monetary policy may reinforce the countercyclical movement of the Lerner index. That is, this measure of competitiveness of the banking sector may vary more over the business cycle due to the monetary policy rule.JEL classification: G21, E52, L13.Acknowledgements The author thanks Hans Degryse, Hans van Ees, Marco Haan, Eko Riyanto, Bert Schoonbeek, Elmer Sterken, three anonymous referees, and participants of the EARIE 2001 conference (Dublin), the NAKE Day 2002 (Amsterdam), and a seminar at Ghent University for their constructive comments.revised version received November 11, 2003     

What Collusion? Unilateral Market Power as a Catalyst for Countercyclical Markups

This paper presents and tests a simple model of competitive and unilateral market power regimes that yields countercyclical markups. Following a decrease in demand in the short run, capacity-constrained firms may have a strong incentive not to lower their prices to the new competitive price. Demand shocks may introduce market power into a previously competitive market. Experimental posted offer markets support this conjecture with complete information on the market structure. With only private information, there appears to be a hysteresis effect concerning supracompetitive prices, i.e., markets with a history of supracompetitive pricing continue to generate supracompetitive prices following demand shocks. However, competitive markets also remain competitive following demand shocks when firms only have private information on costs and capacities.     

市场势力、企业社会责任与绿色创新

企业绿色创新是促进高质量发展的重要支撑。随着《中华人民共和国反垄断法（2022修正）》的实施,企业市场势力对绿色创新的影响更值得学术界关注。结合组织惰性理论和合法性理论的观点,文章尝试构建一个以企业社会责任为传导路径的整合性解释框架。在文献回顾基础上,区分战略性企业社会责任和反应性企业社会责任,分别探讨二者在市场势力和绿色创新关系中的中介作用。以沪深A股上市公司为样本,通过实证研究发现,市场势力负向影响企业绿色创新,战略性企业社会责任在二者关系中存在遮掩效应,而反应性企业社会责任则发挥中介效应。本文有助于解释中国情境下不同市场势力的企业通过履行社会责任推动绿色创新的行为倾向与路径差异,从而为绿色创新的政策制定和管理实践提供理论借鉴。     

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。     

Upstream Market Power and Wasteful Retailers*

We provide a novel explanation for the wasteful product disposal by retailers. In our model, after purchasing a quantity of a product from the manufacturer, the retailer exerts a costly effort to sell the product to the final users. The manufacturer’s production cost and the outside opportunity associated with it is private information. We show that, when the manufacturer has the upstream market power, the retailer sells all units purchased from the manufacturer. However, when the retailer has the market power, it might deliberately purchase more than it sells to the final users (thus wasting the unsold amount).     

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     

Renewable Energy Policy Instruments and Market Power

Markets for green certificates allow generators with market power to squeeze the margins of their competitors, as a generator that is vertically integrated into network activities might do. We analyze this issue in a stylized electricity industry in which a dominant producer of both conventional and renewable energy is facing a competitive fringe of renewable‐energy producers. We demonstrate that whether or not a dominant firm is vertically integrated into network activities, it can disadvantage the fringe producers by distorting certificates prices, thereby inducing cost inefficiency in the generation of renewable energy. We compare green certificates to a system of feed‐in tariffs, where a similar margin squeeze is not possible.     

Market Power and Marketisation: Japan and China's Impact on the Iron Ore Market, 50 Years Apart

ABSTRACT

How can we explain the marketisation of the iron ore market following the emergence of China, whereas the same market had seen change in the opposite direction following the emergence of Japan, 50 years earlier? I argue that relative coordination capacity – or relative market power – between domestic and international stakeholders explains market change at the global level. Via the study of Japan and China's impact on the iron ore pricing and shipping regimes, I show that China's rise led to the marketisation (liberalisation and financialisation) of the iron ore market pricing regime, and the demarketisation of the shipping regime, whereas Japan's rise led to demarketisation in both cases. This article's argument illustrates that China's impact is not equal across markets, contrary to characterisations of China as either a revisionist or status quo power. Second, it argues that China has caused the marketisation of the iron ore pricing regime, which is contrary to expectations on both sides of the debate on China's rise: China was unable to dictate outcomes via a strong state, nor did it seamlessly integrate the global economy. Third, it illustrates the importance of resonance dynamics at the interface of domestic and global market institutions.