Pricing and capacity provision in electricity markets: an experimental study

The creation of adequate investment incentives has been of great concern in the restructuring of the electricity sector. However, to achieve this, regulators have applied different market designs across countries and regions. In this paper we employ laboratory methods to explore the relationship between market design, capacity provision and pricing in electricity markets. Subjects act as firms, choosing their generation capacity and competing in uniform price auction markets. We compare three regulatory designs: (1) a baseline price cap system that restricts scarcity rents, (2) a price spike regime that effectively lifts these restrictions, and (3) a capacity market that directly rewards the provision of capacity. Restricting price spikes leads to underinvestment. In line with the regulatory intention both alternative designs lead to sufficient investment albeit at the cost of higher energy prices during peak periods and substantial capacity payments in the capacity market regime. To some extent these results confirm theoretical expectations. However, we also find lower than predicted spot market prices as sellers compete relatively intensely in capacities and prices, and the capacity markets are less competitive than predicted.     

溢出效应、价格规制与企业投资激励——以电信产业“共建共享”政策为视角

电信运营商不愿参与"共建共享"缘于这项政策可能会降低产品差异化程度,加剧竞争。文章基于三阶段轮辐模型,从福利经济学角度考察无规制和存在接入价格规制情形下的最优投资水平发现,如果企业为争夺老用户竞争,溢出效应不仅会降低投资厂商与接入厂商之间的差异化,而且会导致厂商投资更加偏离社会最优投资水平;如果企业定位于拓展新用户,溢出效应反而可以提高全行业的经济效益,同时使得更多消费者享受到电信服务。但是,为消除市场失灵带来的投资偏离而采取价格规制政策会进一步扭曲厂商投资的激励。基于此,文章认为在电信用户迅速增长的今天,政府应出台更多"共建共享"的配套政策促进企业投资。     

On the welfare effects of competition for foreign direct investments

This paper investigates welfare effects of subsidy competition for the location of a multinational enterprise. One of the competing regions benefits more from the inward investment but, in the absence of incentives, the multinational's preferred location is the other, more advanced region. The paper shows that subsidies, by making the multinational switch location, may increase aggregate welfare. If the multinational exports in the absence of incentives, the welfare effects of subsidy competition may look very different. Allowing subsidies attracts the direct investment, which otherwise would not take place, in one of the two regions. Further, it intensifies competition in the market. The paper shows that the welfare increasing role of incentives may be amplified, but also that the competition effect, by hurting domestic firms, may cancel out any other positive role of incentives.     

Access Regulation and the Timing of Infrastructure Investment

This paper examines infrastructure investment incentives under a system of 'regulation by negotiation'. We demonstrate that an appropriately specified access pricing rule can induce private firms to choose to invest at a socially optimal time. The optimal regulatory regime allocates investment costs to the access provider and seeker based on their relative use-values of the facility. It is superior to an unregulated environment because it commits firms ex ante to an access charge that allows for sunk cost recovery. In addition, we show that when the time that access is sought is flexible both replacement- and historical-cost asset valuation methodologies can lead to optimal investment incentives. However, when seeker timing is restricted, historical cost can give rise to distorted incentives.     

Progressive entry and the incentives to invest in alternative infrastructures

In this paper we study an entrant’s incentives to build a network infrastructure, when there is an initial phase of service-based competition where it leases access to the incumbent’s infrastructure. We build a model in which the phase of service-based competition allows the entrant to step into the market by progressively acquiring market experience. We show that the acquisition of experience in the phase of service-based competition delays the entrant’s investment when the prospects for infrastructure investment are good, and accelerates investment otherwise. We also show that when the acquisition of experience depends on the entrant’s current customer base and facility-based entry is a long-term possibility, setting a low access price can accelerate the entrant’s investment.     

COMMITMENT AND COSTLY SIGNALING IN DECENTRALIZED MARKETS

I propose a search model of a decentralized market with asymmetric information in which sellers are unable to commit to asking prices announced ex ante. Relaxing the commitment assumption prevents sellers from using price posting as a signaling device to direct buyers' search. Private information about the gains from trade and inefficient entry on the demand side then contribute to market illiquidity. Endogenous sorting among costly marketing platforms can facilitate the search process by segmenting the market to alleviate information frictions. Seemingly irrelevant but incentive compatible listing fees are implementable provided that the market is not already sufficiently active.     

Trading networks with price-setting agents

In a wide range of markets, individual buyers and sellers trade through intermediaries, who determine prices via strategic considerations. Typically, not all buyers and sellers have access to the same intermediaries, and they trade at correspondingly different prices that reflect their relative amounts of power in the market. We model this phenomenon using a game in which buyers, sellers, and traders engage in trade on a graph that represents the access each buyer and seller has to the traders. We show that the resulting game always has a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, and that all equilibria lead to an efficient allocation of goods. Finally, we analyze trader profits in terms of the graph structure — roughly, a trader can command a positive profit if and only if it has an “essential” connection in the network, thus providing a graph-theoretic basis for quantifying the amount of competition among traders.     

Trade Intermediation and the Organization of Exporters

Empirical papers show that successful exporting firms either use unaffiliated foreign trade intermediaries or own foreign wholesale subsidiaries. However, conventional trade theory models assume that producers can directly access foreign consumers. We introduce intermediaries in an international trade model where producers differ with respect to productivity as well as regarding their varieties' perceived quality and tradability. Trade intermediation is prone to frictions owing to the absence of enforceable cross‐country contracts while own wholesale subsidiaries require additional capital investment. The sorting pattern of firms depends on their degree of competitive advantage; the equilibrium prevalence of intermediation in the industry depends negatively on the heterogeneity among producers, and the market‐specificity of goods, and positively on expropriation risk. Using sectoral US export data by destination country, we confirm the empirical validity of these predictions.     

Two-sided Markets,Competitive Bottlenecks and Exclusive Contracts

We provide a framework for analyzing two-sided markets that allows for different degrees of product differentiation on each side of the market. When platforms are viewed as homogenous by sellers but heterogeneous by buyers, we show that “competitive bottlenecks” arise endogenously. In equilibrium, platforms do not compete directly for sellers, instead choosing to compete indirectly by subsidizing buyers to join. Sellers are left with none of the gains from trade. Despite this, it is sellers who choose to purchase from multiple platforms (multihome). Finally, the role of exclusive contracts to prevent multihoming is explored. We are very grateful to Jose Miguel Abito for research assistance, and to the editor and a referee for helpful comments.     

市场势力、资产专用性与企业研发投入:来自卖方与买方双维度考量的实证研究

在纵向关联市场中,市场势力和资产专用性是企业创新研发投入的重要影响因素。基于2012-2016年我国121家医药制造业上市公司微观数据,从买方与卖方双重视角探究市场势力、资产专用性与企业创新研发投入的关系。结果表明：买方势力、卖方势力与企业研发投入之间均呈现“倒U型”关系,即当买卖双方市场势力较小时,市场势力对企业研发投入的正向“激励效应”占主导地位;在市场势力超过一定水平后,市场势力对企业研发投入的负向“挤出效应”占主导地位,且相比于专用性资产投资强度较低的医药企业而言,卖方势力与买方势力对具有高资产专用性强度的医药企业研发投入所产生的“倒U型”影响更为显著。     

Access Holidays and the Timing of Infrastructure Investment

For risky infrastructure investment, 'regulatory truncation' can diminish investment incentives. We model the truncation problem, showing the link to regulatory commitment, and derive optimal state-contingent access prices. If regulators cannot commit ex ante to specific ex post access prices then a regulatory commitment to a fixed period free of access – an access holiday – can improve investment incentives. We establish conditions under which an access holiday may improve investment timing and show how an optimal holiday depends on the underlying profit flows from the investment. In particular, we show that an optimal holiday may leave investors with positive expected economic profits.     

Incentives to invest and to give access to non-regulated new technologies

We analyze the incentives of a vertically integrated firm, which is a regulated monopolist in the wholesale market and competes with an entrant in the retail market, to invest and to give access to a new wholesale technology. The new technology represents a non-drastic innovation that produces retail services of a higher quality than the old technology, and is left unregulated. We show that for intermediate values of the access price for the old technology, the vertically integrated firm may decide not to invest. When investment occurs, the vertically integrated firm may be induced to give access to the entrant for a low access price for the old technology. Furthermore, when both firms can invest, investment occurs under a larger set of circumstances, and it is the entrant the firm that invests in more cases. We also discuss the implications for the regulation of the old technology.     

Government incentive strategies and private capital participation in China’s Shale gas development

Shale gas development investments are uncertain and irreversible in the initial stage in China. Flexible incentive strategy is needed for governments to guide private capital participation at different development stages. This study aims to provide analysis governments can use to encourage private investment in shale gas projects according to its plans in an extended real options framework. A social benefits variable is introduced to determine the threshold of social benefits that determine whether the government will choose a deferred or instant incentives strategy. By considering the efficiency factor, we show the optimal arrangements of two kinds of incentives: tax cuts and production subsidies, to implement incentive targets. The results indicate that current market demand and social benefits are the key factors that affect the government’s choice of incentive strategy. We also find that the optimal level of incentives, either tax cuts or production subsidies, are independent of current market demand and future market uncertainty under the delayed incentive strategy, but which affect the optimal level of incentives under the instant motivation strategy, and ignoring the negative influence of unpredictable random events on future market demand might lead to insufficient government incentives in this case.     

中国新金融业态风险传染典型事实及特征的实证研究*

本文根据从网络借贷市场搜集的718家正常平台和129家问题平台数据分析典型风险传染事件发生前后市场资金变化情况，构建模型从月度、周度两个维度研究新金融业态风险传染的特征。结果发现：风险更显著地传染至大规模、人均投资金额低的平台。风险传染期内，平台规模越大，对交易量变化的负向作用越大；平台人均投资金额越高，平台与投资人的联系越紧密，对交易量变化的正向作用越大。随着时间的推移，平台规模与人均投资金额对平台交易量变化的影响程度逐渐减弱。风险传染期间，问题平台与正常平台在危机后的交易量存在较为显著的差异，市场资金流向呈现出一定的替代效应。     

Refinancing and decentralization: Evidence from China

Decentralization can complement market liberalization by strengthening incentives of agents to respond to market signals. However, in China banks centralized lending authority following financial reforms in the mid-1990s. We present a new theory of financial decentralization in which centralization provides a credible commitment not to refinance bad projects by reducing available information. Using data from Chinese rural financial institutions, we empirically assess the determinants of decentralization and the likelihood of collateral seizure, strongly confirming the predictions of the refinancing model. We conclude that weak institutional environments may limit the efficiency of financial intermediation despite financial market liberalization.     

Protecting Property: The Politics of Redistribution,Expropriation, and Market Openness

This paper develops a formal model to disentangle the competing political incentives for redistribution, expropriation, and market openness. Although redistribution and expropriation are both types of government extraction, redistribution re‐allocates wealth within the citizenry, while expropriation re‐allocates wealth from citizens to the government. Representative political institutions increase redistribution and reduce expropriation. Market openness changes these incentives, as foreign investors prefer reductions in both redistribution and expropriation. When political institutions are representative, the government will rely more on reducing expropriation, rather than limiting redistribution, to attract foreign investment. Under representative institutions then, openness partially reinforces the preferences of voters rather than undermining them. In addition, market liberalization occurs only when the policy changes needed to attract foreign investment are relatively small. If existing policies are satisfactory to foreign investors, moves toward openness may be accompanied by greater redistribution and expropriation, as governments are tempted by a larger base for extraction. Thus, openness has ambiguous effects on economic policy, at times encouraging and at times constraining extraction.     

竞合行为对装备制造业市场拓展的影响

以我国装备制造业20家上市公司的市场经营数据为样本,从市场效率、市场份额、产品差异等角度考察竞合对市场拓展产生的影响。研究发现,竞合行为的模式不同对装备制造业市场拓展产生的影响也不同,竞合行为并不会必然使双方都获得收益。从分析数据看,以关联联盟形式进行的竞合更能导致企业相对市场效率的改变,以规模联盟形式进行的竞合更有利于产品差异化,而在市场进入方面两种形式的竞合没有显著差异。显然,装备制造业如何理性选择竞合行为和实施策略以参与国际竞争成为亟待解决的问题。     

Remittances, Financial Market Development, and Economic Growth: The Case of Latin America and the Caribbean

Within a theoretical framework, the author analyzes the effects that both workers' remittances and financial intermediation have on economic growth. It is found, among other things, that remittances can have significant positive long-run effects on growth. The author confronts the implications of the theoretical model proposed with panel data for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. After considering the effect of long-run investment and demographic variables, and controlling for fixed time and country effects, the empirical analysis indicates that financial intermediation tends to increase the responsiveness of growth to remittances. The overall conclusion is that making financial services more generally available should lead to even better use of remittances, thus boosting growth in these countries.     

Level of access and infrastructure investment in network industries

In this paper, we study how the terms of access to an incumbent’s infrastructure (i.e., the level of access and price) affect an entrant’s incentives to build its own infrastructure. Setting a high level of access (e.g., a resale arrangement), which requires relatively small up-front investment for entry, accelerates market entry, but at the same time delays the deployment of the entrant’s infrastructure. This is also true for a lower access price. We show that the socially optimal access price can vary non-monotonically with the level of access. We also study the case where access is provided at two different levels, and show that access provision at multiple levels can delay infrastructure building. Finally, we modify our baseline model to allow for experience and/or market share acquisition via access-based entry, and show that high levels of access may accelerate facility-based entry.     

Information revelation in competitive markets

This paper analyzes a market with multiple sellers and horizontally differentiated products. We investigate the sellers’ incentives to reveal product relevant information that affects the buyer’s private valuation. The main finding is that if the number of sellers is sufficiently large, there is a unique symmetric equilibrium with full information disclosure. Thus, unlike the results by Lewis and Sappington (Int Econ Rev 35:309–327, 1994) and Johnson and Myatt (Am Econ Rev 93:756–784, 2006) for monopoly, which state that the monopolist reveals either full information or no information, intense competition results in a single extreme with respect to information disclosure. We show that the market is always inefficient, but the magnitude of inefficiency converges to zero at a high rate as competition intensifies.