An experimental investigation of bilateral oligopoly in emissions trading markets

Market power in emissions trading has been extensively investigated because emerging markets for tradable emissions permits, such as the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), can be dominated by relatively few large sellers or buyers. Previous studies on market power in emissions trading have assumed the existence of a subset of competitive players. However, a key feature of emissions trading markets is that emissions permits are often traded by a small number of large sellers and buyers. Using a laboratory experiment, our objective in this paper is to test the performance of an emissions trading market utilizing a double auction in a bilateral oligopoly. Our results suggest that the theoretical bilateral oligopoly models can better describe market outcomes of emissions trading. The effects of the slope of the marginal abatement cost function on market power in laboratory experiments are found to be consistent with those predicted by the theoretical bilateral oligopoly model. How market power is exercised depends on the curvature of the abatement cost function. If the marginal abatement cost function of buyers (sellers) is less steep than that of sellers (buyers), the price of permits is lower (higher) than that under perfect competition. This is because the market power of buyers (sellers) exceeds that of sellers (buyers). The price of permits is close to the perfect competitive price when all traders have the sameslope of the marginal abatement cost function.     

De vraag Naar Hypothecair krediet en de Rentevorming of de Hypotheekmarkt

Summary This paper presents an econometric model for the Dutch mortgage market. It comprises demand equations for housing and other mortgages, estimated over the period 1965II–1974I, a mortgage rate equation and a set of equations describing the allocation of mortgage credit over four categories of financial institutions. For the demand for mortgages on houses we found a long-term interest elasticity of –1.14 and for the demand for other mortgages one of – 0.58. Mortgage rate differentials seem to influence the distribution of mortgages over the financial institutions. However, the main determinant is the share of new deposits going to commercial banks.

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De schrijvers zijn verbonden aan de Nederlandsche Bank. Drs. Den Butter en drs. Dongelmans zijn medewerkers van de econometrische researchgroep. Dr. Fase is directie-assistent voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek en hoofd van deze groep. Gaarne betuigen we onze dank aan de heren mr. Th. A. Hoog en ir. N. Snijders, indertijd resp. voorzitter en bestuurslid van de Vereniging van Hypotheekbanken, voor hun bereidwilligheid met de beide laatstgenoemde auteurs van gedachten te wisselen over de structuur en werking van de hypotheekmarkt. De heer M. J. Broekhuisen was ons behulpzaam bij het bijeenbrengen van de gegevens en de uitvoering van de talloze berekeningen die tijdens het onderzoek zijn verricht. Een referee zijn we erkentelijk voor een aantal nuttige opmerkingen.     

Imperfect Competition in German Food Retailing: Evidence from State Level Data

An increase in the level of retail concentration in food markets across Europe has raised concerns about the implications of retail dominance in the food supply. This paper measures oligopoly and oligopsony market power in the German food retail industry and incorporate specific details about the German meat market and the European BSE crisis. In this paper, simultaneous estimates of the degree of oligopoly and oligopsony market power in the German food retail industry are derived by applying a set of monthly state level retail beef and pork marketing data in the federal state of Hessen, Germany, from 1995–2000. Results strongly suggest evidence of retail oligopoly and oligopsony power. Lerner index estimates indicate retail market power accounts for 0.5% to 11% of the retail unit margins of beef and pork.

Libéralisation du commerce et intégration spatiale des marchés: Le cas du maïs au Togo

Abstract: The cereal market of Togo was liberalized in 1987. This policy aims to improve markets' spatial integration through the development of arbitrage. The paper assesses the extent of maize market spatial integration in order to understand how it has been affected by price liberalization. The monthly retail maize prices collected on 13 markets for the period from 1980 to 2001 are considered. The results show that the impact of price liberalization on markets integration is moderate. The liberalization has not significantly improved the extent of long‐run and short‐run integration of maize markets. The speed of price adjustment is relatively weak for most of the markets. In order to improve market efficiency, it is suggested that the government should create a market information service (SIM) which will be entrusted in collecting and disseminating weekly cereal prices all over the country.     

亚太地区股票市场的联动程度——基于次级贷冲击的研究

本文从长期关系、短期作用和方差分解方面,分析了次级贷危机前后亚太股市的联动程度。首先,协整检验表明,亚太股市存在长期均衡关系,但这种关系在次级贷危机前后发生了明显的结构转变。其次,Granger非因果检验表明,亚太股市在次级贷危机后,市场间短期作用大大加强。再次,我们定义了单个市场联动程度判断准则,并且结合方差分解发现,亚太地区股市在次级贷危机后单个市场独立性显著降低。总体而言,亚太地区股市在次级贷危机之后联动程度进一步加强,支持弱分割市场理论;美国股市是地区股市领导者;日本股市变化最大,次级贷危机后,市场独立性变得最弱;中国大陆股市也不断融入区域市场。建议政府和投资者对于本国(本地区)之外的实体经济和股市风险都要密切关注。     

A fisherian analysis of individual retirement accounts

Conclusions This paper has employed a Fisherian analysis of intertemporal choice to evaluate the use of IRA's. The analysis shows that with perfect capital markets assumptions, the presence of IRA's will generate no other effect on savings than would a simple tax rabate. Further, it shows that if the tax revenue loss due to IRA's is not accompanied by an expenditure reduction, but is financed with taxes or borrowing, rational households will still employ IRA's, but their effect on intertemporal choice will be nil. The analysis also shows that IRA's do act as a savings incentive to the extent that there are market imperfections, specifically to the degree that transactions costs are important. However, empirical evidence from the literature does not lend firm support to this possibility. The conclusion is that a market imperfection is not a firm basis on which to construct savings incentives. Finally, one can note that the same analysis applies to any tax-based savings incentive that is designed to operate by lowering the tax on interest income. The reason for this finding is that the provision of tax sheltered interest income, along with the deductibility of interest on borrowing, creates general tax arbitrage opportunities for households and that tax arbitrage opportunities do not, in general, generate greater savings in an intertemporal choice model. It follows that significant restriction or elimination of the deductibility of interest on borrowing is a prerequisite for IRA's and other tax based savings incentives to produce their intended effect.     

Exports versus FDI: do firms use FDI as a mechanism to smooth demand volatility?

In this paper, we first develop a simple two-period model of oligopoly to show that, under demand uncertainty, whether a firm chooses to serve foreign markets by exports or via foreign direct investment (FDI) may depend on demand volatility along with other well-known determinants such as size of market demand and trade costs. Although fast transport such as air shipment is an option for exporting firms to smooth volatile demand in foreign markets, market volatility may systematically trigger the firms to undertake FDI. We then use a rich panel of US firms’ sales to 56 countries between 1999 and 2004 to confront this theoretical prediction and show strong evidence in support of the prediction     

Global Financial Crises and Time‐Varying Volatility Comovement in World Equity Markets

This paper studies volatility comovement in world equity markets between 1994 and 2008. Global volatility factors are extracted from a panel of monthly volatility proxies relating to 25 developed and 20 emerging stock markets. A dynamic factor model (FM) is estimated using two‐year rolling‐window regressions. The FM's time‐varying variance shares of global factors map variations in volatility comovement over time and across countries. The results indicate that global volatility linkages are significantly stronger during financial crisis periods in Asia (1997‐1998), Brazil (1999), Russia (1998) and the United States (2000, 2007‐2008). Emerging markets are weakly synchronised with world volatility in comparison with developed markets. In particular, emerging market comovement is significantly lower than developed market comovement during the Asian and US sub‐prime crises. This suggests a degree of decoupling of emerging markets from the global drivers of volatility during these periods.     

The emergence of agricultural commodity markets in China

By conscious design, reformers in China only gradually focused their efforts on expanding the role of markets for the allocation of goods and services in the economy. As a result, markets—especially in the agricultural sector—developed slowly. Throughout the 1990s there was a heated debate about the degree to which markets had emerged. The main goal in this paper is to bring together a number of simple and revealing facts on the emergence of China's markets. To do so we examine several sets of price data and analyze spatial patterns of market prices contours over time and text the extent to which market prices are integrated among China's regions. According to our analysis, we find that to a remarkable degree, agricultural commodity markets have emerged; price patterns look much like those in market economies in the rest of the world and prices are highly integrated across space.     

International capital mobility: regional versus global perspective

This paper examines the role of regional versus global savings in financing domestic investment to shed light on the role of financial globalization and regionalism in capital markets. Regression results based on six regions with 141 countries reveal that although the role of foreign (global or regional) saving has increased over time, there are regional differences: domestic saving is the major source of investment financing in North America with an increasing role of regional and global savings over time, while regional saving is the main source in Europe. Global saving has been the main source of investment financing in other regions where domestic and regional financial markets are not well developed. However, the role of regional saving has significantly increased in recent years in the Asia-Pacific and in Latin America. Regionalism such as financial and monetary cooperation is likely to have increased the role of regional saving.     

Methodological approach to the market structure type identification (using the example of the fish production market of Primorskii krai)

The article is devoted to the search of a way to solve one of the fundamental problems of economic analysis of industrial markets, that is, the identification of the market structure type, lying at the interface of oligopoly and monopolistic competition or oligopoly and monopoly. It is proposed to conduct such an identification procedure on the base of using the instruments of L. Zadeh’s possibility theory. The proposed approach has been evaluated on the example of the fish production market in Primorskii krai.     

Sentiment effects on Chinese share prices and savings deposits: The post-2003 experience

This paper examines the importance of sentiment effects on asset allocation decisions in mainland China and beyond. Rising stock market sentiment appears to have negatively and significantly impacted Chinese savings account growth over the 2003–2007 period. Investor sentiment also exerted consistently significant effects on the discounts attached to Chinese B-shares, H-shares and ADRs by foreign investors. Although the sample period is limited by availability of the sentiment data, the indicated effects remain most robust when controlling for relative stock market performance, liquidity levels, expected exchange rate movements, and such ‘indirect’ sentiment measures as market and firm-specific price-earnings ratios.     

Does bank competition affect the transmission mechanism of monetary policy through bank lending channel? Evidence from India

This paper empirically investigates how intensified competition in the Indian banking affects the transmission of monetary policy through bank lending channel over the period 1997–2017. Additionally, this study examines the impact of deposit and loan market channels on bank’s credit growth. Results obtained through two-step system-GMM reveal that a higher degree of market power weakens the monetary policy transmission mechanism for the entire banking industry and across ownerships. Results show that higher market power in the deposit and loan markets weakens the impact of monetary policy on bank loan supply. The findings of this study extend important policy measures that can strengthen the transmission mechanism of monetary policy by reducing the adverse effects of changes in bank competition.     

Who Influences the Asian–Pacific Real Estate Markets: The US,Japan or China?

As rapid economic growth in China has led to significant appreciation of urban real estate market values, this study examines China's influence on Asian–Pacific real estate markets by focusing on their respective market integration with the US, Japan and China during the period January 2005 to December 2017. Market integration is examined by unconditional and time‐varying conditional correlations, nonlinear Granger causality and dynamic connectedness effects. Overall, although the US and Japanese real estate markets have significantly influenced return and volatility in the regional markets, China has emerged as another major regional real estate volatility leader with rising influence over volatility integration, especially during the 2007–2011 crisis period. Financial crises have strengthened China's volatility connectedness effects and market integration with other Asian–Pacific real estate markets. Our results imply that the benefits of regional portfolio diversification may be declining as volatility integration across the Chinese and Asian–Pacific real estate markets becomes stronger. Therefore, diversified global investors should pay greater attention to these real estate markets.     

Understanding the Growth of African Financial Markets*

Abstract: This paper examines empirically the determinants of financial market development in Africa with an emphasis on banking systems and stock markets. The results show that income level, creditor rights protection, financial repression, and political risk are the main determinants of banking sector development in Africa, and that stock market liquidity, domestic savings, banking sector development, and political risk are the main determinants of stock market development. We also find that liberalizing the capital account promotes financial market development only in countries with high incomes, well‐developed institutions, or both. The powerful impacts of political risk on both banking sector and stock market development suggest that resolution of political risk may be important to the development of African financial markets.     

Did Vasco da Gama matter for European markets?1

This article explores the impact of the ‘Voyages of Discovery’ on European spice markets, asking whether the exploits of Vasco da Gama and others brought European and Asian spice markets closer together. To this end we compare trends in pepper and fine spice prices before and after 1503, the year when da Gama returned from his financially successful second voyage. Other authors have examined trends in nominal spice prices, but this article uses relative spice prices, that is, accounting for inflation. We find that the Voyages of Discovery had a major impact on European spice markets, and provide a simple model of monopoly and oligopoly to decompose the sources of the Cape route's impact on European markets. Finally, we offer some speculations regarding the impact of the Cape route on intra‐European market integration.     

人民币离岸市场与在岸市场汇率的动态相关性研究

论文主要检验了人民币在岸市场(CNY)与香港人民币离岸市场(CNH)以及人民币无本金交割远期外汇市场(NDF)之间汇率波动性的动态相关关系。根据人民币离岸市场发展的标志性事件将样本区间分为四段,采用日度数据,利用DCC-MVGARCH模型研究三个市场日汇率数据之间的动态相关关系,研究结果发现:三个市场相关程度不断增强,信息传递较快;2009年7月1日前CNY市场与CNH市场汇率波动率的相关系数较低且规律性不强;2009年7月2日至2010年7月19日,受国际金融危机的影响,人民币汇率稳定不再升值,其相关系数接近于0;2010年7月20日至2011年6月27日汇率波动性的相关性逐渐增强,表明人民币国际化的影响逐渐加大。2011年6月28日至2012年12月24日间汇率波动的相关性显著增强,这说明人民币不同市场之间的信息溢出程度加强,境内外市场融合程度不断提高。     

The current global financial crisis: Do Asian stock markets show contagion or interdependence effects?

In the framework of the current global economic crisis, a pertinent question is whether the world economies are suffering from contagion or interdependence effects. With its origins in the US sub-prime mortgage market crisis starting at the end of 2007, when a loss of confidence by investors in the value of securitized mortgages resulted in a liquidity crisis, hard-hitting the banking system and rapidly spreading into the financial markets, the effects of the crisis were automatically reflected in the rest of the world economies. These effects become more severe as the rest of the world is facing economic and financial instability. Therefore, the American shock can be seen as the trigger that revealed the other economies’ own financial problems. The main finding of this paper shows that the US stock markets are not generating contagious effects into the Asian stock markets. However, strong evidence of volatility transmission derived from these economies’ interlinkages has been detected.     

The new development economics

The theory of rural organization based on rational peasants in environments where information is imperfect and costly provides a simple explanation for a wide variety of phenomena in LDCs. It provides insights into both why sharecropping is so widespread and why it takes on the particular forms that it does; it provides an explanation of the interlinkage of credit and land markets, and of cost sharing. The paper argues that this theory provides a better explanation of these phenomena than do the competing theories. This theory can be viewed as an important application of a more general paradigm, the “Imperfect Information Paradigm,” which has been useful in explaining economic phenomena under a wide variety of settings: under competition, oligopoly, and monopoly; in labor markets, capital markets, in insurance markets, and product markets; and in developed and less developed countries.