the effects of rent asymmetries in experimental auction markets abstract we report the results of twelve double auction market experiments designed to analyze the effects of asymmetric induced supply and demand configurations on the price convergence path toward a competitive equilibrium the proposition convergence bias that prices tend to approach the competitive equilibrium from above below when consumer surplus is greater less than producer surplus cannot be rejected we do however reject the proposition convergence symmetry that these convergence biases are of equal absolute magnitude excesses of producer over consumer surplus are found to have a more pronounced effect on the sequence of contract prices

sequential investment in renewable energy technologies under policy uncertainty although innovation and support schemes are among the main forces that drive investment in renewable energy re technologies both involve considerable uncertainty we develop a real options framework to analyse the impact of technological policy and electricity price uncertainty on the decision to invest sequentially in successively improved versions of a re technology technological uncertainty is reflected in the random arrival of innovations and policy uncertainty in the likely provision or retraction of a subsidy that takes the form of a fixed premium on top of the electricity price we show that greater likelihood of subsidy retraction provision lowers raises the incentive to invest and by comparing a stepwise to a lumpy investment strategy we show how an embedded option to adopt an improved technology version mitigates the impact of subsidy retraction on investment timing specifically we show how stepwise investment facilitates earlier technology adoption compared to lumpy investment and that under stepwise investment technological uncertainty accelerates technology adoption thus further offsetting the incentive to delay investment in the light of subsidy retraction

the exercise of market power in laboratory experiments douglas d davis and charles a holt march 1998 introduction many aspects of antitrust policy are influenced by the possibility that sellers in concentrated markets may have the power to raise prices above competitive levels of course anyone can raise price so the issue is whether a change in structure e g a merger will allow one or more sellers to raise price profitably a price increase by one seller diverts sales to others so a firm is more likely to have market power when its competitors have limited capacity to expand their sales thus a merger that reduces competitors capacity may create market power in laboratory experiments any treatment that reassigns units of capacity from one seller to another may create or destroy market power even if the aggregate supply curve is unchanged for example giving one seller a relatively large endowment of infra marginal low cost units may make it less risky for this seller to raise price and forego the sale of high cost units thus it is not surprising that experiments with apparently similar supply and demand structures may yield different price outcomes as discussed below there are a number of other ways in which structural changes can affect the degree of power that sellers enjoy market power can also be sensitive to the trading institution and this is the context that power issues first arose in experimental economics for example the public posting of uniform prices in a posted offer auction eliminates the incentive to offer discounts on marginal units that arises in a double auction in fact smith 1981 found that even monopolists are sometimes unable to maintain prices above competitive levels in double auctions whereas supra competitive prices are the norm in postedoffer monopolies similarly holt langan and villamil 1986 found that sellers in concentrated double auctions were sometimes able to raise prices but that prices fell to competitive levels in about half of the sessions despite the high concentration of seller capacity davis and williams 1991 replicated the holt langan and villamil results for double auctions and then used the same market

the voluntary price for the small consumer real time pricing in spain abstract in 2013 a period of reform was initiated of the regulatory framework of the spanish electricity sector a year later the methodology for the calculation of the voluntary price for the small consumer vpsc was approved a real time price tariff for small domestic consumers under this price setting system vpsc consumers are billed according to their hourly consumption and hourly prices along the day directive 27 2014 eu on energy saving was also transposed to spanish regulation in 2014 the impact on the spanish electricity market and domestic vpsc consumers of these two recent energy policy modifications are analyzed in this work a qualitative model based on the flexibility of the merit order curves is first introduced to formulate a number of hypotheses a set of scenarios are then examined to quantify the main effects on the market and on domestic consumers the results show that domestic energy saving and to a lesser extent load shifting scenarios can diminish the mean hourly price and the cost of the annual traded energy in the market nevertheless these reductions are mainly granted to large qualified consumers since domestic consumers mostly benefit from the reduction of their energy demand rather than from a reduction of the price

the future developments of the electricity prices in view of the implementation of the paris agreements will the current trends prevail or a reversal is ahead abstract we assess the impact on the european electricity market of the european union clean energy for all europeans package which implements the eu nationally determined contribution in paris cop 21 we focus on the year 2030 which is the year with defined climate targets for the assessment we employ a game theoretic framework of the wholesale electricity market with high technical detail the model is applied to two core scenarios a base scenario and a low carbon scenario to provide insights regarding the future electricity capacity generation mix cross border trade and electricity prices we also assess three additional variants of the core scenarios concerning different levels of a fossil and co2 prices b additional flexibility provided by batteries c market integration we find that the electricity prices in 2030 substantially increase from today s level driven by the increase in fuel and co2 prices the flexibility from batteries helps in mitigating the price peaks and the price volatility the increased low marginal cost electricity generation the expansion of non dispatchable and distributed capacities and the higher market integration further reduce the market power from producers in the electricity markets from today s level

an analysis of the decline of electricity spot prices in europe who is to blame abstract the european electricity markets are going through a phase of agitating transition which is shaped by different key factors such as the expansion of renewable energies the changes in the eu carbon trading scheme and the european market integration in addition markets are affected by the volatile prices of primary energy carriers e g gas and coal the development of these different factors led to a decline of german wholesale electricity prices of almost 40 from about 51 mwh in 2011 to 31 mwh in 2015 the goal of this study is to analyze the contribution of different price drivers to this decline thus an agent based modeling and a regression approach are applied to investigate the effect of price drivers and to verify model results by comparing both approaches our results show that against the public perception the impact of carbon and coal prices on german electricity prices has been twice as high as the renewable expansion between 2011 and 2015 furthermore if carbon and coal prices do not recover to at least the level of 2011 electricity prices will remain on the current low level complicating the economic operation of gas power plants

renewable generation and electricity prices taking stock and new evidence for germany and austria abstract economic theory predicts that the increase of renewable electricity production should reduce the price of electricity in the short run which is also known as the merit order effect although the merit order effect is only one of several consequences of renewable production on the electricity system it is crucial to determine its size for the economic evaluation of renewable energies in this paper we present a comprehensive overview of relevant past research results on the price effect of renewables additionally we conduct a new empirical analysis of the price effect of renewable production for the austrian german region a market that clearly qualifies for a merit order effect analysis given its characteristics based on the review and our own analysis we show that the merit order effect varies depending on the region and the assessment method chosen we also find that the size of this effect is less dispersed throughout different markets than previously suggested by the literature

market power and the institutional asymmetry of the posted offer trading institution abstract this paper reports a series of market experiments examining the conjecture that the institutional asymmetry inherent in posted offer pricing can suppress the exercise of market power by the non posting side of the market the data clearly support this conjecture if market power is defined as a unilateral incentive to manipulate the market price via strategic quantity withholding

where do all the windmills go influence of the institutional setting on the spatial distribution of renewable energy installation abstract promoting renewable energy sources is one policy response to climate change not only is there currently a debate over the best policy instrument it is also discussed whether the renewable energy production should be expanded centralized at locations with the highest production potential or decentralized close to load it is yet not fully understood what influences the spatial distribution of renewable energy installation i assess the effect of subsidy scheme and market design on the spatial distribution of wind energy installations by comparing a feed in tariffs versus market premiums and b uniform versus nodal pricing the analysis is based on theoretical considerations and using a six node test model that reflects the consumption and renewable resource distribution in several countries and regions the institutional setting has great influence on the spatial distribution and resulting system costs with uniform pricing a market premium only leads to a more decentralized expansion of renewable energy production than a tariff when sites share similar wind conditions spatially more distributed expansion of wind power performs better in terms of total costs and share of wind power in final demand when networks are restricted

testing the boundaries of the double auction the effects of complete information and market power abstract we report boundary experiments testing the robustness of price convergence in double auction markets for non durable goods in which there is extreme earnings inequality at the competitive equilibrium ce following up on a conjecture by smith 1976a we test whether the well known equilibrating power of the double auction institution is robust to the presence of complete information about traders values and costs and the presence of symmetric market power we find that complete information is insufficient to impede convergence to ce prices however introducing market power consistently causes prices to deviate from the ce whether or not subjects possess complete information our design highlights the value of boundary experiments in understanding how market institutions shape behavior and our findings help delineate the limits of the double auction institution to generate competitive outcomes

reforming china s institutional environment for urban infrastructure provision summary rapid urbanisation in the reform period has resulted in a very high demand for basic urban infrastructure in china improving its provision by the public sector is a challenge as problems persist in the form of unmet demand de ciencies in cost recovery and inadequate maintenance institutional hurdles particularly the lack of organisational and nancial autonomy for the providers of urban infrastructure are in part to blame urban construction authorities have yet to rid themselves of political interference and overlapping responsibilities but measures have been taken to reform the institutional environment speci cally increasingly decentralised central local scal relations are allowing municipalities an unprecedented degree of freedom for resource mobilisation through a wide range of mechanisms that greatly expand extra budgetary revenue a case study of shanghai s reform efforts shows that results can be immediate and promising

the hayek hypothesis in experimental auctions institutional effects and market power the hayek hypothesis in experimental auctions institutional effects and market power we report twelve market experiments utilizing a seller market power supply and demand structure where two of five sellers can unilaterally increase their profit by withholding supply the data indicate that both the double auction and posted offer institutions result in traders extracting the bulk of the potential gains from exchange in the market however prices generally occur above the competitive equilibrium prediction market power in the form of strategic supply withholding does not appear to be responsible for the supra competitive prices i introduction one important result arising from experimental market research is that the information flows and contracting rules which define the institutional structure of a market can exert a pronounced influence on market performance such institutional features may be more important than some traditional structural characteristics in determining whether market outcomes will correspond to the predictions of the competitive model in particular a large and growing body of experimental data suggests that markets can generate efficient outcomes even when there are a relatively small number of buyers and sellers with incomplete information on the underlying structure of the market based on evidence from a wide variety of experimental double auction markets vernon smith 1982 167 has expressed this more formally as the hayek hypothesis markets economize on information in the sense that strict privacy together with the public messages of the market are sufficient to produce efficient ce competitive equilibrium outcomes in this statement however the notion of an efficient ce outcome could be interpreted as 1 a simple efficiency claim that all exchange surplus will be extracted or 2 a price claim that all exchange surplus will be extracted via trades at the competitive equilibrium price a recent study by holt langan and villamil 1986 hereafter hlv examines the validity of the hayek hypothesis using the double auction institution and a market structure designed to provide a rather difficult test for the competitive model hlv s market power design provides a subset of sellers with an incentive to unilaterally generate a price increase via the strategic withholding of supply the resulting price deviation from the competitive equilibrium is substantial but results in a relatively small loss of market efficiency thus the price interpretation of the hayek hypothesis is violated in this design if holders of market power recognize their position and successfully affect prices to their advantage the efficiency interpretation however will still hold approximately even with the successful exercise of market power in fact the price interpretation of the hayek hypothesis tends to break down in hlv s markets but the efficiency interpretation tends to hold hlv report deviations from the competitive equilibrium price consistent with the exercise of market power in three of five seller market power experiments they also conjecture that deviations from the competitive equilibrium may increase as participants become more experienced with the trading institution this paper reports the results of twelve experiments that build on hlv s research our experiments compare market performance in hlv s seller market power smp design using both the double auction and posted offer trading institutions our purpose in conducting these experiments is twofold first we are interested in examining the effects of changes in trading institutions on deviations from the competitive equilibrium price in the smp design second to the extent that competitive equilibrium price deviations are observed we are interested in assessing whether the exercise of market power in the form of strategic withholding is the source of these deviations

efficient modeling and forecasting of electricity spot prices abstract the increasing importance of renewable energy especially solar and wind power has led to new forces in the formation of electricity prices hence this paper introduces an econometric model for the hourly time series of electricity prices of the european power exchange epex which incorporates specific features like renewable energy the model consists of several sophisticated and established approaches and can be regarded as a periodic var tarch with wind power solar power and load as influences on the time series it is able to map the distinct and well known features of electricity prices in germany an efficient iteratively reweighted lasso approach is used for the estimation moreover it is shown that several existing models are outperformed by the procedure developed in this paper

on the economics of renewable energy sources abstract with the global expansion of renewable energy re technologies the provision of optimal re policy packages becomes an important task we review pivotal aspects regarding the economics of renewables that are relevant to the design of an optimal re policy many of which are to date unresolved we do so from three interrelated perspectives that a meaningful public policy framework for inquiry must take into account first we explore different social objectives justifying the deployment of re technologies and review model based estimates of the economic potential of re technologies i e their socially optimal deployment level second we address pivotal market failures that arise in the course of implementing the economic potential of re sources in decentralized markets third we discuss multiple policy instruments curing these market failures our framework reveals the requirements for an assessment of the relevant options for real world decision makers in the field of re policies this review makes it clear that there are remaining white areas on the knowledge map concerning consistent and socially optimal re policies

the impact of investors risk aversion on the performances of capacity remuneration mechanisms abstract this paper analyses the impact of risk aversion on the performances of capacity remuneration mechanisms with investors facing an uncertain peak load three market designs are studied for this purpose a competitive energy only market a capacity market and a strategic reserve mechanism a simulation model based on system dynamics is developed in order to represent investment decisions and analyse the behaviour of each market design risk aversion is modelled through the computation of conditional value at risk the results are discussed in terms of impact on the reliability ability to limit shortages and cost total generation costs of the studied market designs when comparing the three market designs the capacity market seems to be the least affected by the introduction of risk aversion both in terms of cost and reliability this result suggests that implementing a capacity market is preferable in order to deal with the adverse effects of risk aversion given the simulations and parameters that were used

urban infrastructure financing in reform era china urban infrastructure has been substantially upgraded in reform era china this paper explains contextually and empirically how chinese cities finance their infrastructure it demonstrates that china has succeeded in addressing urban infrastructure backlogs by opening up new venues for financing but simultaneously heavily relying on unconventional sources the paper also argues that urban infrastructure financing has much to do with the country s transition to a market oriented economy that fosters the pro growth role of city governments as well as the redistribution of fiscal power between the levels of the urban hierarchy that produces significant variation of financial capacities among the different administrative ranks of cities

renewable generation versus demand side management a comparison for the spanish market abstract conventionally the required instantaneous balance generation load is achieved by adjusting production to fit variable consumer demand nowadays a significant and increasing segment of generation is renewable but renewable production cannot be scheduled on request since its generation is dependent on nature wind sun in this context demand side management dsm would help since it would be advisable for part of the flexibility to be provided by the demand the integration of renewable production and demand side management dsm are compared in this work for spain throughout 2008 2014 first a qualitative model based on the linearization of the wholesale market is employed to explore some hypotheses a set of scenarios are then examined to quantify the main effects on the market the results show that dsm exhibits the best performance in terms of economic efficiency and environmental sustainability as well as for the reduction of load peaks and losses in the system what suggests the convenience of promoting plans for the replacement of equipment with other more efficient as well as the implementation of real time tariffs

the importance of transnational impacts of climate change in a power market abstract we contribute to the discussion on transnational impacts of climate change by analysing the potential cross border impacts climate change driven changes in the hydropower potential we analyse this in the context of the nordic countries where norway and sweden are likely to gain hydropower potential and finland is likely to experience transnational impacts we use an economic simulation model and a dynamic optimization model to study the impact of climate change to the production mix the price of electricity consumption of electricity and emissions from electricity production we show that climate change might reduce prices through increased renewables supply which decreases the profitability of power production the changes in the inflow profile affect the hydropower profiles over the hydrological year such that the reduced inflow peak in the spring shifts the hydropower production from spring to autumn and winter in addition the larger inflow increases the share of hydropower in production mix over the year the emissions per consumed energy unit is going to be decreased because of the decreasing share of the thermal production in the system however increased hydropower production reduces prices which in turn increases the quantity demanded this rebound effect somewhat dampens the emission reduction

competitive equilibrium convergence in a posted offer market with extreme earnings inequities abstract we present the results of five laboratory posted offer experiments in which the competitive equilibrium model predicts that all exchange profits are received by one side of the market thus defining a boundary condition price converges to the prediction more slowly when buyers rather than sellers receive the exchange surplus apparently due to the increased market power of sellers in this trading mechanism a model of the seller s decision in this market is developed to explain this result we also observe costly signalling and tacit collusion in our experiments

the plunge in german electricity futures prices analysis using a parsimonious fundamental model abstract the german market has seen a plunge in wholesale electricity prices from 2007 until 2014 with base futures prices dropping by more than 40 this is frequently attributed to the unexpected high increase in renewable power generation using a parsimonious fundamental model we determine the respective impact of supply and demand shocks on electricity futures prices the used methodology is based on a piecewise linear approximation of the supply stack and time varying price inelastic demand this parsimonious model is able to replicate electricity futures prices and discover non linear dependencies in futures price formation we show that emission prices have a higher impact on power prices than renewable penetration changes in renewables demand and installed capacities turn out to be similarly important for explaining the decrease in operation margins of conventional power plants we thus argue for the establishment of an independent authority to stabilize emission prices

the merit order effect a detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in germany the german feed in support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources has led to high growth rates of the supported technologies critics state that the costs for consumers are too high an important aspect to be considered in the discussion is the price effect created by renewable electricity generation this paper seeks to analyse the impact of privileged renewable electricity generation on the electricity market in germany the central aspect to be analysed is the impact of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices the results generated by an agent based simulation platform indicate that the financial volume of the price reduction is considerable in the short run this gives rise to a distributional effect which creates savings for the demand side by reducing generator profits in the case of the year 2006 the volume of the merit order effect exceeds the volume of the net support payments for renewable electricity generation which have to be paid by consumers

green energy market development in germany effective public policy and emerging customer demand this paper reviews the development of renewable energy in germany from 1973 to 2003 it investigates the relative importance of energy policy and green power marketing in shaping the renewable energy market more than a decade of consistent policy support for renewables under the feed in law streg and its successor eeg has been an important driver for increasing renewable electricity generation to date putting the country in a better position than most of its peers when it comes to achieving european union targets for renewable energy green power marketing driven by customer demand on the other hand is growing but has had limited measurable impact so far we discuss potential intangible benefits of green power marketing and scenarios for future market development the paper concludes with lessons that can be learned from the german case for policy design and market development in other countries

the impact of renewable energies on eex day ahead electricity prices in this paper we analyze the impact of renewable energies wind and photovoltaic on the formation of day ahead electricity prices at eex we give an overview of the policy decisions concerning the promotion of renewable energy sources in germany and discuss their consequences on day ahead prices an analysis of electricity spot prices reveals that the introduction of renewable energies enhances extreme price changes in the frame of a dynamic fundamental model we show that there has been a continuous electricity price adaption process to market fundamentals furthermore the fundamental drivers of prices differ among hours with different load profiles our results imply that renewable energies decrease market spot prices and have implications on the traditional fuel mix for electricity production however the prices for the final consumers increased overall because they must pay in addition the feed in tariffs for the promotion of renewable energy

a combined modeling approach for wind power feed in and electricity spot prices abstract wind power generation and its impacts on electricity prices has strongly increased in the eu therefore appropriate mark to market evaluation of new investments in wind power and energy storage plants should consider the fluctuant generation of wind power and uncertain electricity prices which are affected by wind power feed in wpf to gain the input data for wpf and electricity prices simulation models such as econometric models can serve as a data basis this paper describes a combined modeling approach for the simulation of wpf series and electricity prices considering the impacts of wpf on prices based on an autoregressive approach thereby wpf series are firstly simulated for each hour of the year and integrated in the electricity price model to generate an hourly resolved price series for a year the model results demonstrate that the wpf model delivers satisfying wpf series and that the extended electricity price model considering wpf leads to a significant improvement of the electricity price simulation compared to a model version without wpf effects as the simulated series of wpf and electricity prices also contain the correlation between both series market evaluation of wind power technologies can be accurately done based on these series

market power and mergers in laboratory markets with posted prices in this article we use laboratory methods to evaluate determinants of supracompetitive pricing the experiment involves three treatments each with the same market supply demand and competitive price in the baseline treatment capacity is divided among five sellers so that the competitive price is a nash equilibrium market power is created in a second treatment by reallocating capacity among the sellers this market power raises observed prices in all sessions in a third treatment the three smallest sellers are merged in a way that holds market power constant the consolidation has little residual effect on prices

culture and competition a laboratory market comparison between china and the west abstract twenty laboratory markets 160 subjects were conducted to measure the influences on competitive economic behavior of 1 political and ethnic culture 2 information regarding the profits earned by others and 3 interaction between 1 and 2 the market design maximized the distance between the competitive equilibrium prediction and the equitable division of profits between traders isolated cultural differences were noted in price convergence trends however these isolated trend differences are overshadowed by a close cultural similarity in price levels across market periods the data of this study therefore provide evidence that the competitiveness observed in several prior laboratory market studies persists even in a markedly different culture

how renewable production depresses electricity prices evidence from the german market abstract the urgency of climate change has led several countries to develop renewable energy in order to reduce co2 emissions through the means of various subsidies in the electricity sector one drawback of such policies is the negative impact on electricity prices known as the merit order effect this paper aims at assessing how intermittent renewable production depresses electricity prices in germany which has experienced a significant increase of its renewable capacity over the last two decades to do so we use a two regime markov switching model that enables to disentangle the impact of wind and solar generation depending on the price being high or low we find as expected that renewable production induces a negative marginal effect which is stronger in regimes of relatively high prices in addition we show that both wind and solar productions have a significant impact on the distribution of prices and in particular on the frequency and expected duration of each regime this has implications in terms of market design security of supply and support mechanisms for renewables

the process of commercialisation of urban housing in china the role of the state in housing has been the subject of controversial debate recently in china more and more decision makers consider that the supply of housing should be left to market forces of demand and supply various new policies have been introduced from as early as 1979 designed to commercialise and reform the public sector dominated housing system this paper provides a review of housing reforms and a systematic account of the key features of the commercialisation process it focuses principally on the attempts to privatise public sector housing in urban areas in the context of the major characteristics and problems of the urban housing system the development of reform policies and legislation and current reform practice

cost effectiveness of renewable electricity policies we analyze policies to promote renewable sources of electricity a portfolio standard rps raises electricity prices and primarily reduces gas fired generation a knee of the cost curve exists between 15 and 20 goals for 2020 in our central case and higher natural gas prices lower the cost of greater reliance on renewables a renewable energy production tax credit lowers electricity price at the expense of taxpayers which limits its effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions and it is less cost effective at increasing renewables than a portfolio standard neither policy is as cost effective as a cap and trade policy for achieving carbon emission reductions

do support systems for res e reduce eu ets driven electricity prices abstract support systems for electricity from renewable energy sources res e can reduce electricity prices which have also been influenced by a co2 emission trading scheme ets additional res e substitutes electricity from fossil fuels and thus co2 emissions are reduced the demand for emission reductions is lowered as a result the co2 price is also reduced consequently the wholesale price for electricity decreases however most res e support systems are financed via the electricity market which increases the retail electricity price an assessment for germany shows that retail electricity prices in the first trading period of the eu ets 2005 2007 are lowered by 2 6 euro mwh due to additional res e considering the complete eu the effect is substantially higher this paper describes the effect and the influence of different policy designs it develops an approach for assessing the effect and applies it for the case of germany and roughly estimates the effect for the eu

hybrid pricing in a coupled european power market with more wind power abstract in the european electricity market the promotion of wind power leads to more network congestion zonal pricing market coupling which does not take the physical characteristics of transmission into account is the most commonly used method to relieve network congestion in europe however zonal pricing fails to provide adequate locational price signals regarding scarcity of energy and thus creates a large amount of unscheduled cross border flows originating from wind generated power in this paper we investigate the effects of applying a hybrid congestion management model i e a nodal pricing model for one country embedded in a zonal pricing system for the rest of the market we find that compared to full nodal pricing hybrid pricing fails to fully utilize all the resources in the network and some wrong price signals might be given however hybrid pricing still outperforms zonal pricing the results from the study cases show that within the area applying nodal pricing better price signals are given the need for re dispatching is reduced more congestion rent is collected domestically and the unit cost of power is reduced

the merit order effect of czech photovoltaic plants abstract we assess the impact of photovoltaic power plants on the electricity supply curve in the czech republic the merit order effect is estimated as the elasticity of electricity spot price with respect to change in supply of electricity from renewable sources data for the czech electricity spot market from 2010 to 2015 are analyzed as this is the period with the steepest increase in a renewable generation capacity the effect is estimated separately for solar and other renewable sources we find a significant difference between these two groups our results show that based on hourly daily and weekly data energy produced by czech solar power plants does not decrease electricity spot price creating double cost to the end consumer however the merit order effect based on averaged daily and weekly data is shown to exist for other renewable sources excluding solar mainly water and wind this contributes to the conclusion that the czech renewables policy that prefers solar to other renewable sources may be considered as suboptimal

developing by borrowing inter jurisdictional competition land finance and local debt accumulation in china although the investment oriented development model for economic growth adopted by chinese governments has generated spectacular results the risks of debt financed urbanisation and economic development have recently become evident in mounting local debts that are undermining the financial system triggering concerns with respect to local governments indebtedness financial stability and sovereign risk in china in this paper we portray the uneven spatial and temporal dynamics of local government debt in china and examine the ways in which it is intertwined with institutional political and economic factors our analysis shows that while global and national economic conditions have resulted in a dramatic increase in local government debt particularly in the late 2000s and the early 2010s the spatial variation of local debt accumulation in china could be partly explained by two institutional factors land finance and inter jurisdictional competition we argue that the behaviour of local governments may

determinants of renewable energy growth a global sample analysis abstract we investigate factors influencing country level renewable energy growth by applying fevd and pcse estimation methods in a unique sample analysis with a longer time series 1990 2010 and a broader sample size of countries including brazil russia india china and south africa than previous studies our results reveal new insights the results suggest that certain government backed energy policies impede renewable energy investments thus implying significant failures in policy design these policies may be failing mainly because of uncertainty and the likelihood of discontinuity weak voluntary approaches are introduced in order to satisfy public demand for more sustainable investments and programmes we find that these may have negative influences on the growth of renewables as well the insight gained is consistent over the estimation methods employed

changing land policy and its impact on local growth the experience of the shenzhen special economic zone china in the 1980s having elaborated the transformation of land policy in the wake of chinese economic reform and the background to the formation of a new land policy in the shenzhen special economic zone china thi

market power in oral double auctions this paper reports the results of a series of oral double auction experiments in which some traders possess market power a market is set up in which the configuration of the supply and demand curves leads to an asymmetry between buyers and sellers in their abilities to influence transactions prices this market structure does not always lead to convergence to the competitive equilibrium price despite the competitive nature of the oral double auction institution the nonconvergence occurs most frequently in the experiments involving experienced subjects

the merit order effect of wind and photovoltaic electricity generation in germany 2008 2016 estimation and distributional implications abstract generation from renewable energy sources in germany has experienced a considerable uptake in recent years mainly responsible for this development is the german renewable energy sources act erneuerbare energien gesetz eeg this paper considers redistributive implications of the eeg for different electricity consumers using time series regression analysis we show that electricity generation by wind and pv has reduced spot market prices considerably by 6 mwh in 2010 rising to 10 mwh in 2012 we use these results to build a near term forecasting tool for merit order effects projected to reach 14 16 mwh in 2016 on the other hand the costs of the eeg are passed forward to consumers in the form of a surcharge our findings highlight significant redistributive transfers under the current design of the eeg in particular some energy intensive industries are benefiting from lower wholesale electricity prices whilst being largely exempted from contributing to the costs of the scheme we also highlight implications of our results for other areas for reform of the eeg such as adequate remuneration mechanisms that ensure efficient operation and investment decisions are made under the scheme more generally these findings suggest that policy makers need to integrate distributional assessments into policy design and implementation