The Informational Role of the EPA SO2 Permit Auction

We consider the ex ante informational implications of the mandatory surrender feature of a stylized emission permit auction, similar to that in the U.S. EPA SO₂ permit scheme, but modeled as a uniform price auction. The theory suggests that generally the auction gives misleading signals concerning the expected price of permits in the post-auction permit market; in the cases where the permit auction is designed to correctly predict the post-auction permit market equilibrium price, the permit auction preempts the permit market, and all trading occurs in the auction. Ex post auction/market experience suggests that the market may have enabled the auction and consequently raises the possibility that the market may have worked in spite of the auction and not because of it.     

An experiment on emissions trading: the effect of different allocation mechanisms

In theory, efficiency and compliance levels induced by an emission trading system should not depend on the initial allocation mechanism for permits in the absence of transaction costs. In a laboratory experiment we investigate this prediction by comparing frequent and infrequent auctioning as well as two different grandfathering schemes under market rules that closely resemble those of the European Union Emission Trading System. Our experimental results suggest that, contrary to theoretical predictions, the initial allocation procedure has the potential to affect efficiency of the final permit allocation. While we do not identify an effect of the initial allocation procedure itself (auction vs. grandfathering), we observe higher final efficiency after infrequent auctioning of permits than for frequent auctioning. Surprisingly, for a grandfathering scheme that distributes permits proportional to expected needs the high initial efficiency is substantially reduced by secondary market trading. An analysis of behavioral patterns shows that permit prices and abatement levels are initially substantially higher if permits are allocated by auction and we also find more over-banking as compared to the grandfathering treatments. Treatment differences diminish in the course of the experiment.     

向上叫价时钟双向拍卖机制设计

通过深入分析统一价格密封双向拍卖机制的诸多缺陷，充分借鉴单向拍卖市场上时钟拍卖的基本思想，将时钟拍卖引入双向拍卖市场，构建了一个无论从分配效率方面考虑还是从竞价风险方面考虑都优于统一价格密封双向拍卖机制，不仅为同类物品确定统一价格，还可以为不同类的物品确定其不同的价格的向上叫价时钟双向拍卖机制。     

Hybrid allocation mechanisms for publicly provided goods

Motivated by efficiency and equity concerns, public resource managers have increasingly utilized hybrid allocation mechanisms that combine features of commonly used price (e.g., auction) and non-price (e.g., lottery) mechanisms. This study serves as an initial investigation of these hybrid mechanisms, exploring theoretically and experimentally how the opportunity to obtain a homogeneous good in a subsequent lottery affects Nash equilibrium bids in discriminative and uniform price auctions. The lottery imposes an opportunity cost to winning the auction, systematically reducing equilibrium auction bids. In contrast to the uniform price auction, equilibrium bids in the uniform price hybrid mechanism vary with bidder risk preferences. Experimental evidence suggests that the presence of the lottery and risk attitudes (elicited through a preceding experiment) impact auction bids in the directions predicted by theory. Finally, we find that theoretically and experimentally, the subsequent lottery does not compromise the efficiency of the auction component of the hybrid mechanisms.     

Fees and the Efficiency of Tradable Permit Systems: An Experimental Approach

The paper presents the results of an economic experiment in which the effects of fees on allocative efficiency of tradable utilization permits (e.g. pollution permits) are explored. Laboratory subjects (university students) play the roles of firms whose generic product requires a specific input or permits. Scarcity is exogenously introduced by a fixed supply of tradable production permits. Three treatments are compared: No fee imposed (N); a fixed tax per permit (T); and partial retraction of permits and subsequent redistribution by auction (A). Treatments T and A represent two different ways of imposing fees, which are designed to be revenue equivalent. Our results indicate that, after controlling for deviation of permit prices from a prediction based on fundamentals, fees have an impact on distribution of permits. Interestingly, a fixed tax enhances efficiency compared to the case of no fees while retraction and reallocation by auction tends to reduce efficiency. Apparently, subjects’ decision making is affected by the imposition of fees, but how and to what extent depends on the method used.     

International emission permit markets with refunding

We propose a blueprint for an international emission permit market such as the EU trading scheme. Each country decides on the amount of permits it wants to offer. A fraction of these permits is freely allocated, the remainder is auctioned. Revenues from the auction are collected in a global fund and reimbursed to member countries in fixed proportions. We show that international permit markets with refunding lead to outcomes in which all countries tighten the issuance of permits and are better off compared to standard international permit markets. If the share of freely allocated permits is sufficiently small, we obtain approximately socially optimal emission reductions.     

Permit markets, market power, and the trade-off between efficiency and revenue raising

This paper focuses on an emissions permit market dominated by one firm and with a government concerned about social efficiency and permits revenue. In this setting, it is shown that the dominant firm's market power reduces the opportunities for the government to raise non-distortionary revenue from permits without loss of consumer surplus. Since the government's objectives are thus hampered in auctioning permits, the dominant firm should be excluded from the auction. Specifically, the regulator should sell permits directly, through bilateral negotiation, to the dominant firm, and auction off the remaining permits to the fringe firms.     

AUCTION–LOTTERY HYBRID MECHANISMS: STRUCTURAL MODEL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

This article studies an auction–lottery hybrid mechanism that is widely adopted in allocating new vehicle licenses in China. We characterize individuals' entry and bidding strategies in a symmetric Bayesian Nash equilibrium, structurally estimate individuals' value distribution from a data set of a Guangzhou program, and evaluate the performance of the mechanism. Based on the estimated distribution and counterfactual analysis, our study suggests that a hybrid mechanism preserves 83% efficiency and 52% of revenue, while it improves equity by 25 times compared to a pure auction. We show that allowing auction losers to participate in the lottery can further enhance the performance.     

Selling an asset to a competitor

A seller decides whether to allocate an item among two potential buyers. The seller and buyer 1 interact ex post in such a way that each of them suffers a negative externality if the other possesses the item. We show that the optimal allocation rule favors buyer 2, who does not interact ex post with the seller, and in particular bidder 1 may not obtain the good even if his valuation is highest. The auction is therefore subject to resale. When resale is possible, the seller must distort the original auction. We show that the mechanism depends crucially on the way resale is organized ex post. The seller may decide to always allocate the good to the agent with the highest valuation when rents are fully extracted by an intermediary on the resale market. However, she may resort to a stochastic mechanism when the winner of the primary auction has full bargaining power in the resale stage.     

Investment Incentives Under Emission Trading: An Experimental Study

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on incentives to adopt advanced abatement technology under emissions trading. Our experimental design mimics an industry with small asymmetric polluting firms regulated by different schemes of tradable permits. We consider three allocation/auction policies: auctioning off (costly) permits through an ascending clock auction, grandfathering permits with re-allocation through a single-unit double auction, and grandfathering with re-allocation through an ascending clock auction. Our results confirm both dynamic and static theoretical equivalence of auctioning and grandfathering. We nevertheless find that although the market institution used to reallocate permits does not impact the dynamic efficiency from investment, it affects the static efficiency from permit trading.     

Taxation by auction: fund raising by 19th century Indian guilds

We describe a unique institution used by 19th century Indian guilds to raise funds: on certain holidays only one shop was allowed to operate; an auction would be held to sell this right, and the winning bid would go to the guild fund. We compare this “taxation by auction” mechanism with more conventional tax schemes and show that under certain conditions, not only will a majority of guild members prefer to be taxed via an auction, but that this form of taxation will be more equitable.     

Experimental evidence on tax salience and tax incidence

Although a basic theoretical principle in public economics assumes that individuals optimize fully with respect to the introduction of a tax, a growing body of research is proving that several heuristics are in place when people take decisions. We re‐examine the well known liability side equivalence principle in the light of the concept of salience. While these two topics have been extensively investigated in isolation, this paper innovates on the previous literature in that it focuses on their joint effects. Is tax incidence dependent on whether the subjects face a salient rather than a nonsalient tax? Does the salience of a tax exert a different effect depending on who is legally committed to bear the tax burden? We address these questions through a laboratory experiment in which one unit of a fictitious good is being traded through a double‐auction market institution. Based on a panel data analysis, our contribution shows that point of collection matters and determines the economic incidence of tax. Additionally, we find that the joint effect of salience and statutory incidence does not alter the informative efficiency, but has a positive effect on buyers’ allocational efficiency when the tax is levied on sellers.     

风险投资退出股权拍卖机制研究

设计了满足信息有效和激励相容条件的风险投资退出股权拍卖机制,有效解决了风险投资退出时股权交易市场中不对称信息导致的市场萎缩和交易价格失真等问题。通过与其他交易方式的交易绩效进行比较分析,进一步证明了本文所设计的拍卖机制的有效性。     

Dynamic analysis of bribery firms’ environmental tax evasion in an emissions trading market

Using an R&D-based growth model with dual regulation, we analyse how environmental policies influence pollution, corruption, a growth rate, and welfare. Considering that polluting firms bribe bureaucrats to evade paying environmental tax, we find that a stricter environmental tax leads to a decrease in growth rate via a decrease in the permit rent as well as an increase in pollution and corruption per firm and results in worsening households’ welfare and in improving the bureaucrats’ welfare. Thus, tax evasion with corruption improves households’ welfare and worsens the bureaucrats’ welfare. Our findings imply that tax evasion under dual regulation improves social welfare.     

基于SWOT分析下的安徽省拍卖行业的发展建议

拍卖作为有效的市场配置资源的交易方式，越来越多地受到人们的关注和重视。虽然拍卖近几年发展迅速，但也存在着许多阻止拍卖业进一步发展的问题：本文利用SWOT分析的框架，结合当前安徽省拍卖业的问题，提出了完善安徽省拍卖行业的建议和措施。     

Perfect competition in an oligopoly (including bilateral monopoly)

We show that if limit orders are required to vary smoothly, then strategic (Nash) equilibria of the double auction mechanism yield competitive (Walras) allocations. It is not necessary to have competitors on any side of any market: smooth trading is a substitute for price wars. In particular, Nash equilibria are Walrasian even in a bilateral monopoly.     

Prices versus quantities: environmental regulation and imperfect competition

By exercising market power, a firm will distort the production, and therefore the emissions decisions, of all firms in the market. This paper examines how the welfare implications of strategic behavior depend on how pollution is regulated. Under an emissions tax, aggregate emissions do not affect the marginal cost of polluting. In contrast, the price of tradable permits is endogenous. I show when this feedback effect increases strategic firms’ output. Relative to a tax, tradable permits may improve welfare in a market with imperfect competition. As an application, I model strategic and competitive behavior of wholesalers in a Mid-Atlantic electricity market. Simulations suggest that exercising market power decreased emissions locally, thereby substantially reducing the regional tradable permit price. Furthermore, I find that had regulators opted to use a tax instead of permits, the deadweight loss from imperfect competition would have been even greater.     

Emission Trading with Fiscal Externalities: The Case for a Common Carbon Tax for the Non-ETS Emissions in the EU

A government is fiscally constrained if it is unable to raise sufficient tax revenue to finance the first-best level of public spending. When involved in emission trading, a fiscally constrained government will potentially seek to close its fiscal gap through emission permit sales. This fiscal incentive therefore generates a fiscal externality in the permit market that is endogenous to the extent of fiscal constrainedness among the participating countries. Our theory explains how, and when, fiscal externalities may be expected to arise. Moreover, we show that in a permit market equilibrium with fiscal externalities, the initial allocation of emission permits between countries will affect: (1) the price of emission permits, (2) the global distribution of abatement effort, and (3) total greenhouse gas mitigation costs. This is contrary to the textbook model of emission permit markets. Our findings are especially relevant for the EU which is about to allow for trading in emission rights between EU member countries for all emissions outside the European Emissions Trading System.     

CUTTING CARBON EMISSIONS AT A PROFIT (PART I): OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE UNITED STATES

This article identifies and corrects shortcomings in recent modeling studies on the economics of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The major assessments of the Kyoto Protocol—by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Clinton White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Department of Energy Interlaboratory Working Group, and the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum—are found to be seriously incomplete. Each study omits one or several of four major cost-reducing policy options, resulting in cost estimates that are far too pessimistic.
In the present study, these shortcomings are overcome through the integrated evaluation of all major cost-cutting policy options within a coherent least-cost framework. Three domestic policies—a national carbon cap and permit trading program, productivity-enhancing market reforms and technology programs, and recycling of permit auction revenues into economically advantageous tax cuts—are combined with international emissions allowance trading.
This analysis shows that an integrated least-cost strategy for mitigating U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would produce an annual net output gain of roughly 0.4% of GDP in 2010 and about 0.9% of GDP in 2020. On a cumulative net present value basis, the United States would gain $250 billion by 2010 and $600 billion by 2020. International flexibility mechanisms (including emissions trading) are of only secondary significance in realizing these productivity, output, and welfare gains.     

土地增值税的征收应缓行

我国推行土地增值税已有十余年,但其运行效果并不理想.尤其是2001年以来土地一级市场的交易方式改为"招、拍、挂"后,土地增值收益已提前一轮完成分配,表现在房地产企业的实际情形就是大部分项目没有形成土地增值税税负.为此,房地产实业界和学术界对土地增值税的存在意义进行了激烈争论.本文在对土地增值税进行简单理论分析后,以成都市代表性楼盘以及成都市部分房地产公司的土地增值税税负水平为支撑,从微观和中观层面进行描述统计分析,再结合全国数据佐证本文基本结论--土地增值税应暂缓征收.