Can Allowing to Trade Permits Enhance Welfare in Mixed Oligopoly?

We compare the effects of tradable emission permits (TEP) and non-tradable emission permits (NTEP) in a mixed oligopoly, where public firms and private firms compete in a product market. If all technologies and initial endowments of emission permits are symmetric among public and private firms and if the emission constraint is exogenous and binding, social welfare is greater (resp. smaller) under TEP than under NTEP when the weight of social welfare in each public firm's objective function and the degree of convexity of the production cost function and that of the abatement cost function are small (resp. large).     

Environmental policy, fuel prices and the switching to natural gas in Santiago, Chile

In this study I analyzed the role of environmental policies and energy cost savings on the pattern of switching to natural gas by stationary sources in Chile. According to the data most of the switching was induced by the lower cost of natural gas, although environmental policies played a small role and showed that sources were more sensitive to the cost of energy than to the environmental regulation.     

Factors that determine the cost-effectiveness ranking of second-best instruments for environmental regulation

This paper develops a conceptual model to analyze how specific factors affect the compliance costs of three suboptimal policy instruments, when compared to the optimal ambient permit system (APS) benchmark. The model considers a non-uniformly mixed pollutant and explicitly incorporates the following factors: number of polluting sources; size, in terms of emissions, of each process; marginal abatement costs for each process; effluent concentrations; the transfer coefficient that relates emissions to environmental quality at the receptor; and the desired environmental quality target. APS is compared to a suboptimal emission permit system (EPS), and two Command and Control (CAC) policies—equal percentage reduction (PER) and a uniform effluent concentration standard (STD). The results show the importance of the different factors and their interactions in determining each policy instrument’s cost-effectiveness ranking. Surprisingly, EPS performs well within the usual values of these factors and in specific cases STD and PER also perform similarly to APS.      

Allowing for Household Preferences in Emission Trading – A Contribution to the Climate Policy Debate

In the context of emission trading it seems to be taken as given that people's preferences can be ignored with respect to the whole process of fixing emission targets and allocating emission permits to polluters. With this paper we want to reopen the debate on how citizens can be involved in this process. We try to show how citizen preferences can be included in the process of pollution control through emission trading. We propose an emission trading system where all emission permits are initially allocated to households who are then allowed to sell them in the permit market or to withhold (at least some of) them in order to reduce total pollution. This proposal tries to overcome the fundamental disadvantage of traditional permit systems which neglect consumer preferences by solely distributing emission permits to producers / polluters. In our system the property right to nature is re-allocated to the households who obtain the opportunity of reducing actual emissions according to their personal preferences by withholding a part or all of the emission permits allotted to them. Such a change in environmental policy would mark a return to the traditional principles of consumer sovereignty by involving households (at least partially) in the social abatement decision process instead of excluding them. Another advantage of admitting households to the TEP market as sellers or buyers of permits is that this increases the number of agents in the permit market and thus significantly reduces the possibilities of strategic market manipulations.     

Environmental rights on the futures markets an application to the dutch manure market

A study was carried out to analyze futures markets for tradable rights after a cash market was initiated. Furthermore, some indication was given on the size of such a futures market to provide insight into its viability. Futures markets can play a role in solving environmental problems, by making the market for pollution rights (i.e. P₂O₅ rights) and agro rights (milk rights, sugar rights and P₂O₅ rights) more effective and transparent. Moreover, the market for tradable rights would be able to meet the users' need for hedging. This paper investigated the possibility of introducing a futures markets for tradable P₂O₅ rights and the commodity manure. Because there is already a cash market for manure, although not well developed yet, and there will be a cash market for P₂O₅ rights, a futures market is a logical sequel. The futures market can play a role in implementing agricultural policy efficiently and with respect to manure and P₂O₅ rights can be an economically efficient solution to environmental problems.We acknowledge the financial support of the ATA (Agricultural Futures Market Amsterdam).     

Pure numbers effects, market power, and tacit collusion in posted offer markets

This paper studies the effects of seller concentration and static market power on tacit collusion in extensively repeated laboratory posted-offer markets. Contrary to the implications of some earlier research, we find that tacit collusion does not become pervasive with extensive repetition. In a ‘strong no-power’ design persistently competitive outcomes are observed in markets with three or four sellers. Even duopolies are frequently competitive in this design. Unilateral market power raises prices, as predicted. However, static Nash predictions fail to organize outcomes across power treatments, because tacit collusion moves inversely with concentration. Excess capacity appears to explain observed tacit collusion levels.     

Market power, survival and accuracy of predictions in financial markets

In a standard General Equilibrium framework, we consider an agent strategically using her large volume of trade to influence asset prices to increase her consumption. We show that, as in Sandroni (Econometrica 68:1303–1341, 2000) for the competitive case, if markets are dynamically complete and some general conditions on market preferences are met then this agent’ long-run consumption will vanish if she makes less accurate predictions than the market, and will maintain her market power otherwise. We thus argue that the Market Selection Hypothesis extends to this situation of market power, in contrast to Alchian (J Pol Econ 58:211–221, 1950) and Friedman (Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1953) who claimed that this selection was solely driven by the competitiveness of markets. I would like to thank T. Hens, A. Kirman and A. Sandroni for many stimulating conversations and encouragements. Two anonymous referees also provided very valuable comments.     

Environmental performance and returns to pollution abatement in China

Because of China's extremely rapid economic growth, the scale and seriousness of environmental problems is no longer in doubt. Whether pollution abatement technologies are utilized more efficiently is crucial in the analysis of environmental management in China. This study analyzes how the performance of environmental management has changed over time using province level data for 1992-2003. Mixed results for environmental performance are shown using nonparametric estimation technique. We find that environmental performance index, abatement effort, and increasing returns to pollution abatement play important roles in determining the pollution level over the period of the study.     

Market concentration and competition in OECD mobile telecommunications markets

This study analyses the progress of market concentration in OECD member states’ mobile telecommunications markets and evaluates the relationship between market concentration and performance. Using annual panel data from 24 OECD member states for the 1998–2011 period, the study estimates regression equations for market concentration, mobile prices and profits. The empirical results indicate that the more concentrated the mobile market, the higher the prices and profits, providing support for the market power hypothesis. If this hypothesis holds, then market concentration can be a useful indicator of market performance. On the other hand, the applicability of the hypothesis is unclear for the second half of the sample period. The results provide evidence that regulatory policies influence the structure and performance of mobile markets.     

Dissertation abstract: Essays on pricing in experimental duopoly markets

This dissertation comprises three independent essays that analyze pricing behavior in experimental duopoly markets. The first essay examines whether the content of buyer information and the timing of its dissemination affects seller market power. We construct laboratory markets with differentiated goods and costly buyer search in which sellers simultaneously post prices. The experiment varies the information on price or product characteristics that buyers learn under different timing assumptions (pre- and post-search), generating four information treatments. Theory predicts that price information lowers the equilibrium price, but information about product characteristics increases the equilibrium price. That is, contrary to simple intuition, presence of informed buyers may impart a negative externality on other uninformed buyers. The data support the model's negative externality result when sellers face a large number of robot buyers that are programmed to search optimally. Observed prices conform to the model's comparative statics and are broadly consistent with predicted levels. With human buyers, however, excessive search instigates increased price competition and sellers post prices that are significantly lower than predicted. The second essay uses experimental methods to demonstrate the anti-competitive potential of price-matching guarantees in both symmetric and asymmetric cost duopolies. When costs are symmetric, price-matching guarantees increase the posted prices to the collusive level. With asymmetric costs, guaranteed prices remain high relative to prices without the use of guarantees, but the overall ability of guarantees to act as a collusion facilitating device depends on the relative cost difference. Fewer guarantees, combined with lower average prices, suggest that cost asymmetries may discourage collusion. The third essay investigates the effect of firm size asymmetry on the emergence of price leadership in a homogeneous good duopoly. With discounting, the unique subgame-perfect equilibrium predicts that the large firm will emerge as the endogenous price leader. Independent of the level of size asymmetry, the laboratory data indicates that price leadership by the large firm is one of the most frequently observed timings of price announcement. In most cases, however, it comes second to simultaneous price-setting. This tendency to wait for the other firm to announce its price is especially strong when the level of size asymmetry between firms is low. We attribute the lower than expected frequency of price leadership to coordination failure, which is further compounded by elements of inequity aversion. JEL Classification C91, D43, D83, L11 Dissertation Committee: Timothy Cason (Chair), Department of Economics, Purdue University Dan Kovenock, Department of Economics, Purdue University Stephen Martin, Department of Economics, Purdue University Marco Casari, Department of Economics, Purdue University     

Proactive planning and valuation of transmission investments in restructured electricity markets

Traditional methods of evaluating transmission expansions focus on the social impact of the investments based on the current generation stock which may include firm generation expansion plans. In this paper, we evaluate the social welfare implications of transmission investments based on equilibrium models characterizing the competitive interaction among generation firms whose decisions in generation capacity investments and production are affected by both the transmission investments and the congestion management protocols of the transmission system operator. Our analysis shows that both the magnitude of the welfare gains associated with transmission investments and the location of the best transmission expansions may change when the generation expansion response is taken into consideration. We illustrate our results using a 30-bus network example. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Efficiency Measurement in Network Industries: Application to the Swiss Railway Companies

The persistence of increasingly high government subsidies in Switzerland’s railroads has led the federal and cantonal authorities to discussing the possibility of high-powered incentive contracts such as those based on cost efficiency benchmarking. Railways are however, characterized by a high degree of unobserved heterogeneity that could bias the efficiency estimates. This paper examines the performance of several panel data models to measure cost efficiency in network industries. The unobserved firm-specific effects and the resulting biases are studied through a comparative study of several stochastic frontier models, applied to a panel of 50 railway companies operating over a 13-year period.* The authors wish to thank Michael Crew and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions. Aurelio Fetz provided an excellent assistance, which is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.This revised version was published in June 2005 with corrections in the author affiliations.     

Tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade in Hungary: The impact of the Uruguay Round and EU accession

International trade has featured prominently in Hungary's rapid transition to a market economy. This paper reports some relatively simple summary and complementary indicators for tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade, which are designed to reflect the level and structure of tariffs and the scope of NTBs in Hungary. The existence of tariff 'spikes' and highly pervasive NTBs in certain sectors constitutes prima facie evidence that the domestic dead-weight efficiency and net welfare losses caused by tariff and non-tariff protection as well as the costs to consumers could be high. The indicators are used to highlight several key developments associated with Hungary's transition to a market economy, implementation of the Uruguay Round (UR) agreements and possible accession to the EU.     

中国的环境效率与环境管制——基于1986-2007年省级水平的估算

环境效率是生产过程中潜在可实现的最少污染排放量与实际污染排放量之比,企业能否提高环境效率取决于环保投入的产出水平。文章在随机前沿生产函数基础上估算了中国1986-2007年省级水平的环境效率,结果显示:中国的环境效率较低且增长缓慢,其中中部地区环境效率最低,西部地区环境效率最高。目前的环境管制方式在东部较为有效,对中西部的影响则不显著。因此环境管制不但要针对污染物当量,还要综合考虑企业的成本、利润水平等因素,才能更好治理污染。     

美国煤电合约特点及对我国的启示

从交易成本经济学的角度来看,煤炭产业和电力产业适合选择长期合约的合作方式。以美国煤电合约为研究对象,分析在20世纪80年代后美国煤电合约期限缩短(即由原来长期合约为主变为5年期以下的合约占主导)的原因。从以下三个方面对此现象做出解释:能源市场波动削弱了煤炭企业的谈判势力;电力市场放松管制增强了电力企业的谈判势力;其他政策法规产生约束作用。最后结合我国煤电合约现状,借鉴美国构建稳定煤电关系的经验,为缓和我国煤电矛盾提出如下建议:加快实现竞价上网,放松发电企业管制;完善合约条款设置;转变政府参与角色。