Investment, uncertainty and irreversibility

This paper investigates the irreversibility of investments and the impact this has on the nature of the relationship between investment and uncertainty. The empirical analysis uses firm‐level data and is based on a survey of 210 rice‐milling firms in the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam, which was carried out during the year 2000. We show that uncertainty reduces investment of rice millers in the presence of irreversibility, as is predicted by the real options approach to investment. We do not find evidence that the negative association between uncertainty and investment is influenced by the degree of irreversibility.     

Climate Change and the Irreversibility Effect – Combining Expected Utility and MaxiMin

This paper analyzes decisions on emissions of a stock pollutant under uncertaintyin a two period model. Decisions are based on a weighted average of expected utility (EU) and the MaxiMin criterion. I first show that more weight on the worst case (less weight on EU) may lead to increased first period emissions. The effect of learning possibilities on emissions is not clear in general, but depends qualitatively on the weight given to MaxiMin: For the quadratic utility case, considering prospective learning increases today's abatement effort, i.e. the irreversibility effect holds, if the weight on EU is small. This contrasts standard results on the irreversibility effect for EU which translates to small weights on MaxiMin. There is, however, the possibility of a negative value of learning. It is shown that the irreversibility effect holds if and only if thevalue of learning is negative. Consequences for the applicability of generalized EU-MaxiMin are discussed.     

Regulation and Investment under Uncertainty: An Application to Power Grid Interconnection

Using real options, we consider a firm that must undergo a costly and time-consuming regulatory process before making an irreversible, lagged investment whose value varies randomly. We apply our model to Hydro-Québec's proposal to build a 1,250 megawatts interconnection with Ontario. We find that the optimal starts of the regulatory review and of the project construction depend on the randomness of project benefits and on the duration of the regulatory authorization. A sensible limit on the latter allows the regulator to address changing circumstances at little cost to the firm. However, long and uncertain regulatory proceedings make investing less attractive.     

Is Ecolabelling a Reliable Environmental Policy Measure?

The rationale of ecolabelling is to enable firms to reap the willingness-to-payfor the environmental attributes of goods by helping consumers toidentify ``green' products. By so doing, ecolabelling is expected tostimulate spontaneous environmental innovation and to reduce aggregatedpollution. Our analysis however outlines situations under whichecolabelling could induce perverse effects, namely increased investment inconventional technologies before the labels are awarded, and examineswhether restricting the issue of labels could constitute an antidote.     

Policy Adoption Rules and Global Warming

Although there is widespread agreement about the dangers of global warming and the resulting need to cut down emissions, there does not seem to be general agreement about the exact form the policy should take or the timing of its adoption. Failure to adopt and implement policies against global warming reflects the complexity of the problem, the uncertainties of climate change and the cost of policy adoption. Issues associated with the interactions between uncertainties and irreversibilities in determining the timing of policy adoption are analyzed by using the methodology of optimal stopping rules. Optimal policy functions are derived for cooperative and noncooperative solutions, with differential game representation. Issues associated with the empirical application of the optimal policy rules are also considered.     

Uncertain Climate Change in an Intergenerational Planning Model

A three-generation planning model incorporating uncertain climate change is developed. Each generation features a production activity based on capital and an exhaustible resource. An irreversible climate change may occur in period two or three, reducing the productivity for this and the remaining generation. The model is solved by stochastic dynamic programming. If the climate impact and climate change probability is constant, the optimal period one (and two) resource extraction is larger than for the reference case of climate stability. If, however, climate impact and climate change probability increases with increased aggregate resource use, this result is reversed.     

The Delaying Effect of Financing Constraints on Investment

We develop a simple model in which a firm considers a number of investment projects. Because of limited financial resources, the firm can undertake at most one project. In line with the literature on real options we stress features like irreversibility, uncertainty and the possibility of postponing the investment decision and show under which conditions limited availability of funds tends to increase the value of waiting.     

转型时期企业投资的两维度环境分析

企业投资的实现需要两个维度的宏观环境:一个是宏观的投资机会环境;另一个是宏观融资环境.宏观投资机会环境主要通过商业周期变化影响投资,但不确定性加大商业周期的变动性,加大对投资的影响.宏观融资环境通过有效的融资体系提高融资资源的有效配置.转型时期,制度的过渡性和制度缺乏使两维的宏观环境具有特殊性,影响了投资的稳定性和资源的最优配置.两维度环境相互影响,并成为宏观经济运行的行为层次上的内因.     

Uncertainty over future environmental taxes

Besides static efficiency properties, environmental policies should be evaluated in terms of their longer-run impacts on investment and technological change to reduce pollution and degradation of natural resources. Using a stochastic dynamic programming approach, this paper analyzes how uncertainty about a future environmental tax on a polluting input alters investment in resource conservation and how such investment affects future demand for the polluting input. The impact on investment depends crucially on price elasticities of demand and on the manner in which investment shifts and rotates the demand schedule for the polluting input in the future. The expectation of a higher tax does not necessarily create stronger incentives for investment in resource conservation. More uncertainty about future policies does encourage investment if it makes a firm more responsive to future price changes and discourages investment if it makes a firm less responsive to price changes.     

基于两维思考的技术创新投资优化研究

借助“两维思考”的实物期权方法,分析了不确定条件下的企业技术创新投资决策优化问题。研究表明:针对技术创新投资所特有的不确定环境,企业可利用实物期权方法的相对优势,将传统评价方法所忽略的“管理柔性\"纳入考虑范畴,识别不确定中的机会与威胁,有效地进行技术创新投资决策。     

Uncertainty,Learning and International Environmental Policy Coordination

In this paper we construct a simple model of global warming which captures a number of key features of the global warming problem: (i) environmental damages are related to the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; (ii) the global commons nature of the problem means that these are strategic interactions between the emissions policies of the governments of individual nation states; (iii) there is uncertainty about the extent of the future damages that will be incurred by each country from any given level of concentration of greenhouse gases but there is the possibility that at a future date better information about the true extent of environmental damages may become available; an important aspect of the problem is the extent to which damages in different countries may be correlated. In the first part of the paper we consider a simple model with two symmetric countries and show that the value of perfect information is an increasing function of the correlation between damages in the two countries in both the cooperative and non-cooperative equilibria. However, while the value of perfect information is always non-negative in the cooperative equilibrium, in the non-cooperative equilibrium there is a critical value of the correlation coefficient below which the value of perfect information will be negative. In the second part of the paper we construct an empirical model of global warming distinguishing between OECD and non-OECD countries and show that in the non-cooperative equilibrium the value of perfect information for OECD countries is negative when the correlation coefficient between environmental damages for OECD and non-OECD countries is negative. The implications of these results for international agreements are discussed.     

Global uncertainty and capital flows: any difference between foreign direct investment and portfolio investment?

This note investigates how global uncertainty relates to extreme waves of capital flows, including foreign direct investment, portfolio investment, and other investment. We find the clear differences in the role of global uncertainty between advanced and developing economies. Global uncertainty increases the likelihood of sudden contraction of portfolio investment in both advanced and developing economies, while it increases that of foreign direct investment in only advanced economies.     

居民储蓄与投资选择:金融资产发展的含义

本文对我国银行储蓄高企的原因进行探讨,认为单纯从消费角度解释与消化居民银行储蓄是不适当的,化解高储蓄的另一有效方式在于发展准储蓄替代产品、拓展金融投资渠道.金融资产的不确定性增强了储蓄的价值,银行储蓄高企与居民直接投资所受的约束密切相关.我国现阶段低风险资产的缺乏,以及风险资产的广度和深度难以配比居民的投资选择,产生强制性银行储蓄,是现在储蓄高企的重要原因.因此,有必要反思传统的投融资方式,大力培育储蓄替代型金融资产,加快金融体制改革.