Renewable energy subsidies: Second-best policy or fatal aberration for mitigation?

This paper evaluates the consequences of renewable energy policies on welfare and energy prices in a world where carbon pricing is imperfect and the regulator seeks to limit emissions to a (cumulative) target. The imperfectness of the carbon price is motivated by political concerns regarding distributional effects of increased energy prices. Hence, carbon prices are considered to be temporarily or permanently absent or endogenously constrained by their effect on energy prices. We use a global general equilibrium model with an intertemporal fossil resource sector and calculate intertemporally optimal policies from a broad set of policy instruments including carbon taxes, renewable energy subsidies and feed-in-tariffs, among others. If carbon pricing is permanently missing, mitigation costs increase by a multiple (compared to the optimal carbon pricing policy) for a wide range of parameters describing extraction costs, renewable energy costs, substitution possibilities and normative attitudes. Furthermore, we show that small deviations from the second-best subsidy can lead to strong increases in emissions and consumption losses. This confirms the rising concerns about the occurrence of unintended side effects of climate policy – a new version of the green paradox. Smart combinations of carbon prices and renewable energy subsidies, however, can achieve ambitious mitigation targets at moderate additional costs without leading to high energy price increases.     

Public sector price controls and electoral cycles

Public enterprise prices are important policy instruments in developing economies. This is why public sector price polices constitute a key element of stabilization programmes implemented in these economies. However, this significance is not specific to stabilization episodes. First, this study questions whether an opportunistic politician can manipulate public prices to win elections. It analyses the impact of such price controls on budget deficits and the repercussions of alternative financing mechanisms of these deficits on the inflation rate and voters’ behaviour. It is shown that electoral inflation cycles are obtained under domestic debt financing, whereas money financing does not permit such a manipulative policy. Second, by focusing on data of the Turkish economy for the 1987(1)–2003(12) period, empirical evidence for such manipulative policies is given.     

The effect of biofuel policies on feedstock market: Empirical evidence for rapeseed oil prices in EU

The growing expansion of biofuel production in the European Union is a direct consequence of the political framework specifically implemented to reduce the impact of oil price rises and to achieve fuel security and environmental goals. These policies have activated a new relationship between fossil fuel and vegetable oil prices. Combining a multiple structural change approach with rolling cointegration, the article identifies four structural breaks in the relationships between the price of mineral and vegetable oils. Results show that policy instruments are responsible for these structural changes in the long-run relationships between prices. The analysis also shows that from the implementation of the directive 2003/30/EC the price dynamic of rapeseed oil has shifted from its own market to the diesel market, making it subject to interactions with the more complex reality of mineral oil.     

Estimating a socially optimal water price for irrigation versus an environmentally optimal water price through the use of Geographical Information Systems and Social Accounting Matrices

This article develops a method for establishing water prices and their effects in order to provide policy makers an environmentally and socially optimal range of regional prices for irrigation water. Two prices are determined. The “environmentally optimal price” of water is defined as the one that internalizes the environmental costs generated by agricultural consumption. The “social optimally price” of water is defined as the one that maximizes levies on water for agriculture without affecting the regional economy. The environmentally optimal price is calculated with an economic model built over a Geographical Information System (GIS) that allows the economic quantification and valuation of the environmental cost of water in different basins. The optimal price is calculated with a demand curve for irrigation water introduced into a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) to observe if the regional economy can accept higher prices without affecting the regional GDP. Potential water prices are established, ranging from prices that minimize the negative impact in the regional economy to those that totally internalize the environmental cost of water.     

Alternative Approaches to Cost Containment in a Cap-and-Trade System

We compare several emissions reduction instruments, including quantity policies with banking and borrowing, price policies, and hybrid policies (safety valve and price collar), using a dynamic model with stochastic baseline emissions. The instruments are compared under the design goal of obtaining the same expected cumulative emissions across all options. Based on simulation analysis with the model parameterized to values relevant to proposed US climate mitigation policies, we find that restrictions on banking and borrowing, including the provision of interest rates on the borrowings, can severely limit the value of the policy, depending on the regulator-chosen allowance issuance path. Although emissions taxes generally provide the lowest expected abatement costs, a cap-and-trade system combined with either a safety valve or a price collar can be designed to provide expected abatement costs near those of a tax, but with lower emissions variance than a tax. Consistently, a price collar is more cost-effective than a safety valve for a given expected cumulative emissions outcome because it encourages inexpensive abatement when abatement costs decline.     

The asymmetric impacts of monetary policy on housing prices: A viewpoint of housing price rigidity

Previous studies have discovered the defensive characteristics of housing prices, which is also known as downward price rigidity. This paper discusses whether this feature would result in an asymmetric relationship between housing prices and monetary policy. This paper first uses the loss aversion behavior of traders to assess the viability of housing price rigidity in the housing market and to deduce further that if downward housing price rigidity actually existed, then the impact of monetary policy on housing prices should be asymmetric. For empirical tests, this paper uses data from the UK housing market and then uses the money supply as the proxy variable of monetary policy. The relationships between these two variables are observed. This paper performs estimation using both traditional and threshold error correction models by comparing the coefficients of both models. The results indicate that housing price is indeed asymmetrically adjusted to money supply. When housing prices increase to reflect a loose monetary policy, a modification behavior is evident. Conversely, housing prices cannot easily reflect a tight monetary policy. This result indicates that housing prices tend to overreact in upturn and underreact in downturn. The results imply that when implementing relevant policies for the housing market, the government should consider the asymmetry of housing price changes. Otherwise, the situation can easily result in the creation of a bubble or the collapse of the housing market because of incorrect policies.     

Price mimicking under cost-of-service regulation: the Swedish water sector

This study provides an empirical test of price mimicking among publicly owned water utilities. Using a fixed effects spatial Durbin model with data from Swedish municipalities during 2002–2012, I estimate the elasticity of the own relative to neighbors’ average price to 0.14. This behavior can be explained in terms of an informal yardstick competition: when consumers use neighboring municipalities’ prices as benchmarks for costs or as behaviorally based reference prices, policy makers will face the risk of consumer complaints and reduced voter support if deviating too much from neighboring municipalities’ prices. Further, I find some evidence that price mimicking is more pronounced in municipalities where voter support for the ruling coalition is weak.     

Cost efficient pesticide reductions: A study of Sweden

The minimum cost for reducing the farmers' use of pesticides is calculated. The measures include are; (i) a decrease in use of inputs, (ii) an improvement of the insurance system, and (iii) application of an ecotechnology where 5–10 meters along the borders of the fields are left untreated with pesticides. The cost of reducing the use of pesticides is measured by means of pesticide demand functions and the cost for improving an insurance system is measured as the risk premium. The empirical results indicate that the minimum cost for reducing the use of pesticides by 50% in Sweden corresponds to about 6 per cent of farmers' incomes from crop production. A simple comparison of policy instruments shows that the cost of a quota system is about 40 per cent higher than the costs of the charge and permit market systems. The farmers' decreases in incomes under a charge system are twice as high as under the other two policy instruments. The results are, however, sensitive to the levels of the pesticide price elasticities.     

Prices versus quantities versus bankable quantities

Quantity-based regulation with banking allows regulated firms to shift obligations across time in response to periods of unexpectedly high or low marginal costs. Despite its wide prevalence in existing and proposed emission trading programs, banking has received limited attention in past welfare analyses of policy choice under uncertainty. We address this gap with a model of banking behavior that captures two key constraints: uncertainty about the future from the firm's perspective and a limit on negative bank values (e.g. borrowing). We show conditions where banking provisions reduce price volatility and lower expected costs compared to quantity policies without banking. For plausible parameter values related to U.S. climate change policy, we find that bankable quantities produce behavior quite similar to price policies for about two decades and, during this period, improve welfare by about a $1 billion per year over fixed quantities.     

货币政策工具对资产价格动态冲击的识别检验

文章以不同的货币政策手段在资产价格波动的不同阶段所表现出的作用效果为出发点,通过SVAR模型,识别出不同货币政策工具的单独动态冲击,并分别分析了膨胀阶段和低迷阶段的资产价格对货币政策冲击响应的程度,以解决针对不同阶段资产价格波动的货币政策调控手段和时机的选择问题。结果表明,货币政策对资产价格的作用具有有效性,在价格膨胀阶段可在一定时期内采取利率手段对资产价格波动进行微调,当出现价格泡沫时控制货币供应量会收到即时效果;而在资产价格低迷阶段,以利率调节资产价格具有明显和相对持久的作用。     

Prices or Quantities Can Dominate Banking and Borrowing*

The possibility of intertemporal banking and borrowing of tradable permits is often viewed as tilting the various policy debates about optimal pollution control instruments towards favoring such time-flexible quantities. This paper shows that this view can be misleading, at least for the simplest dynamic extension of the original “prices versus quantities” information structure. The model of this paper allows firms to know and act upon the realization of uncertain future costs two full periods ahead of the regulators. For any given circumstance, the paper shows that either a fixed price or a fixed quantity is superior in expected welfare to time-flexible banking and borrowing. Furthermore, the standard original formula for the comparative advantage of prices over quantities contains sufficient information to completely characterize the regulatory role of intertemporal banking and borrowing. The logic and implications of these results are analyzed and discussed.     

THE POLITICS OF PRECOMMITMENT WITH ELECTORAL UNCERTAINTY AND TRANSACTION COSTS

Despite the lack of legal channels through which binding commitments can be made by the government, economic and political factors enable it to affect future outcomes. In practice, large transaction costs are associated with any significant change of policy, and therefore the current government can adopt policies so that certain outcomes are more likely to be realized by its successor. In this paper it is argued that transaction costs combined with electoral uncertainty are likely to drive the current government to adopt a policy which is extreme relative to the preferences of the existing political parties. This policy is adopted in order to ensure that due to transaction costs, the future government will not depart radically from the most preferred policy of the current government. If the current policy is likely to affect the election outcome, then, in addition to the above considerations, the electorate attitudes would have to be taken into account by the government. Hence, the current government confronts two factors in choosing its policies: the behavior of the future government and the behavior of the electorate. The interplay between the two factors determines the choice of the current policy.     

Greenhouse gas abatement policies and the value of carbon sinks: Do grazing and cropping systems have different destinies?

This paper presents a case study in which the effects of agri-environmental policy on two Mediterranean-type farming systems, grazing dominant and cropping dominant, are contrasted. Two greenhouse gas abatement policies are examined; an emissions taxation policy and an emissions restrictions policy. The study seeks to determine firstly, how the policy impacts on the farming systems, and from that, how the nature of the farming systems impact on the effectiveness of the policy. It is shown that relative costs of abatement are higher for the grazing-dominant farming system. However, in the absence of technological change to aid abatement, the cost of substitution from high emitting enterprises, such as livestock, to low emitting enterprises, such as crop production, will determine the cost of abatement. For both farming systems the restriction policy is found to be more effective and economically efficient than the taxation policy. The analysis found that crediting trees as carbon sinks can significantly reduce the costs of abatement. At predicted emissions permit prices, trees would be adopted by both farming systems to offset farm greenhouse gas emissions.     

Technology Diffusion with Market Power in the Upstream Industry

This paper compares taxes and tradable permits when used to regulate a competitive and polluting downstream industry that can purchase an abatement technology from a monopolistic upstream industry. Second-best policies are derived for the full range of the abatement technology’s emission intensities and marginal abatement costs. The second-best permit quantity can be both above or below the socially optimal emission level. Explicit consideration of the output market provides further insights on how market power distorts the allocation in the downstream industry. The ranking between permits and taxes is ambiguous in general, but taxes weakly dominate permits if full diffusion is socially optimal. In addition, it is analysed how a cap on the permit price affects the diffusion of an abatement technology.     

Pricing,distribution and the supply of storage

The Belgian nitrogen fertilizer cartel announces each year a price schedule which is enforced during the coming twelve months. These prices are resale prices to final users and reflect changes in costs of storage. A game-theoretic model is set up to rationalize this behavior for the case of instantaneous final demands and a large number of distributors. Habit formation in final demand is then shown to lead to even more flexible prices, while transferability over time is seen to favor more rigid prices. It is finally suggested that vertical integration into a competitive distribution sector can be profitable because it restores the possibility of intertemporal price discrimination.     

Economic Analysis of Public Policies for Controlling Heroin Use

Policies for controlling heroin use are surveyed. Motivations for harm minimisation and abstinence policies are derived. Pursuing abstinence alone using supply-oriented policies increases heroin prices possibly creating social harm. Pursuing harm minimisation alone reduces user costs that compromise drug abstinence objectives. These tradeoffs between policy objectives are examined for a number of proposed policies including (i) the public provision of heroin to addicts, (ii) the use of safe injecting rooms, (iii) methadone programs and (iv) drug use prevention policies. Coupling legal sanctions that impact specifically on new users with harm minimisation policies, enables relaxation of some policy tradeoffs but penalises a class of users who impose low social costs.     

Optimal monetary policy in the presence of food price subsidies

Food price subsidies are a prevalent means by which fiscal authorities may counteract food price volatility in middle-income countries (MIC). We develop a DSGE model for a MIC that captures this key channel of a policy induced price smoothing mechanism that is different to, yet in parallel with, the classic Calvo price stickiness approach, which can have consequential effects for monetary policy. We then use the model to address how the joint fiscal and monetary policy responds to an increase in inflation driven by a food price shock can affect welfare. We show that, in the presence of credit constrained households and households with a significant share of food expenditures, a coordinated reaction of fiscal and monetary policies via subsidized price targeting can improve aggregate welfare. Subsidies smooth prices and consumption, especially for credit constrained households, which can consequently result in an interest rate reaction less intensely with subsidized price targeting compared with headline price targeting.     

PRIM I: A MODEL OF THE PRICE AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION MECHANISM OF AN OPEN ECONOMY

PRIM I is a numerical model which has been extensively used as a basis for an income policy in Norway in recent years. It is a static, cost-push, input-output model. Wage rates, agricultural prices, productivities and world market prices are treated as exogenous variables, and the model derives short-term changes in income shares and in the national price level from changes in these exogenous variables. A key feature of the model is a distinction between "exposed industries" which are subject to strong foreign price competition, and "sheltered industries" which are relatively free of such competition. These two groups of industries are found to react with very different pricing policies in response to increases in costs; furthermore, possibly for technological reasons, the export industries have greater scope than the majority of the sheltered industries for compensating cost increases through productivity gains. These two facts are shown to have important implications for a price and income policy. It is demonstrated, i.a. that the goal of a stable national price level is, in general, inconsistent with the maintenance of stable income shares when exchange rates are kept constant.     

Climate change—environmental and technology policies in a strategic context

There are a number of features of climate change which make it one of the most challenging problems confronting policy makers and policy analysts. In this paper we consider three such features: (i) climate change is a global pollutant so there are strategic interactions between governments over climate policy; (ii) cutting greenhouse gas emissions can have significant cost effects across a number of sectors of the economy, raising concerns about the implications of climate change policy on competitive advantage; (iii) the long-time scales on which climate change operates means that an important dimension of climate change policy is policy towards R&D to cut the costs of dealing with climate change. In Ulph and Ulph (1996) [Ulph A, Ulph D (1996) In: Carraro C, Katsoulacos Y, Xepapadeas A (eds) Environmental policy and market structure. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 181–208] we presented a model to analyse these issues, but considered only environmental policies. In this paper we extend that analysis to allow for both a richer set of policy instruments (environmental and technology policies) and a richer strategic context.