causality in mean and causality in variance within the international steam coal market abstract the purpose of this paper is to investigate the integration of the steam coal market the analysis of dependencies between mean rates of return of prices on the steam coal market and volatility spillover was conducted using weekly data from the period 04 01 2002 to 30 12 2011 the prices of the world s largest exporters and importers on the pacific and atlantic markets were chosen to analyse the dependencies the methodology was based on the tests from cheung and ng 1996 and hong 2001 which allow for the analysis of granger causality both in mean and in variance the analyses indicate that the dependence between participants is not the same the strongest links were observed between the pairs of participants from the same market that is either the atlantic market or the pacific market and the price of australian coal turned out to be the most important factor in shaping other prices on the pacific market on the atlantic market the coal prices in the amsterdam rotterdam antwerp ara ports and the richards bay port had the greatest influence on coal prices and were the granger cause of prices in the pacific region

price and volatility spillovers across the international steam coal market we examine the degree of integration of the global steam coal market using a variety of measures we show that the australian market remains the dominant force in setting world coal prices followed by mozambique and south africa we find little evidence of asymmetric price and volatility transmission in fact most markets react to both positive and negative shocks in a symmetric manner the coal market displays a significant degree of integration although this effect varies over time while china provides a major source of volatility to the global coal market it is relatively insignificant in terms of price transmission

the globalization of steam coal markets and the role of logistics an empirical analysis abstract in this paper we provide a comprehensive multivariate cointegration analysis of three parts of the steam coal value chain export transport and import prices the analysis is based on a rich dataset of international coal prices in particular we combine data on steam coal prices with freight rates covering the period december 2001 until august 2009 at weekly frequency we then test whether the demand and supply side components of steam coal trade are consistently integrated with one another in addition export and import prices as well as freight rates for individual trading routes across regions and globally are combined we find evidence of significant yet incomplete integration we also find heterogeneous short term dynamics of individual markets furthermore we examine whether logistics enter coal price dynamics through transportation costs which are mainly determined by oil prices our results suggest that this is generally not the case

the elephant in hotelling s room this paper questions the assumption commonly used in theoretical and policy research that scarcity rents make up a large proportion of market prices for oil and coal we show that the empirical literature simple calculations of historical and future scarcity rent shares and possible theoretical explanations all imply the same overall conclusions that scarcity rents seem to have been marginal or non existent historically that they almost certainly do not dominate fossil resource prices today and that there will be other factors shaping the prices in the upcoming decades we therefore argue that using the scarcity rent as the main or only basis for policy or for explaining empirical outcomes is ill advised

exploring technology diffusion in emerging markets the role of public policy for wind energy abstract this study challenges the implicit assumption of homogeneity in national institutional contexts made in past studies of renewable energy policy we propose that institutional differences matter by focusing on several technology specific and generic policy factors that can foster technology diffusion through private sector activity more specifically we explore perceptions of early adopters in emerging economy contexts using wind park project developers as an example by applying a parsimonious method for our questionnaire as well as qualitative data we make several contributions methodologically we introduce maximum difference scaling to the energy policy domain empirically we identify several public influences on private investment and assess their relative importance this leads to new insights challenging findings from industrialized economies we identified additional institutional barriers to diffusion hence the requirement of a combination of technology specific and generic policy measures

taxation of petroleum products theory and empirical evidence the domestic taxation of petroleum products is an important source of revenue in most countries however there is a wide variation of tax rates on petroleum products across countries which cannot be explained by economic theory alone this paper surveys different considerations advanced for taxing petroleum and presents petroleum tax rate data in 120 countries

energy rent and public policy an analysis of the canadian coal industry abstract this paper analyses issues in resource rent through a case study of the canadian coal industry a model of the coal industry is constructed to estimate the magnitude of rent and distribution of coal rent between government and industry over the 30 year period from 1970 to 2000 disaggregation of results by coal sector shows that rent varied widely with one sector generating substantial rent and other sectors incurring large losses the pattern of development of the coal sector followed what can be termed a rent dissipation cycle in which the generation of rent in the profitable sector created excessively optimistic expectations that encouraged new entrants to dissipate rent by developing uneconomic capacity the analysis also shows that the system used to collect rent was ineffective the public owner collected only one third of the rent on the profitable mines and collected royalty revenue from the unprofitable mines even though no rent was generated the case study illustrates that improvements in private sector planning based on a better appreciation of resource market fundamentals elimination of government subsidies that encourage uneconomic expansion and more effective rent collection are all needed to avoid rent dissipation and increase the benefits of energy development in producing jurisdictions the study also illustrates that estimates of rent in the resource sector should disaggregate results by sector and make adjustments for market imperfections to accurately assess the magnitude of potential rent

liberalizing the energy markets of western europe a computable equilibrium model approach using a computable equilibrium model the short run effects of a radical liberalization of the west european natural gas and electricity markets are examined in each model country oil gas coal and electricity are produced traded and consumed there are world markets for oil and coal and well integrated competitive markets for gas and electricity in western europe gas and electricity are transported and traded across markets under the assumption of ideal third party access regimes for transportation and limited capacities in the transportation networks it is found that relative to the data year 1996 radical liberalization reduces the average end user price of natural gas by around 20 and the average end user price of electricity by around 50 the supply of electricity increases by around 20 mainly due to increased coal power production after such liberalization coal power emerges with the largest market share of electricity production in western europe

defining geographic coal markets using price data and shipments data abstract given the importance of coal in world energy supply an analysis of the relevant geographic market is essential for consumers producers as well as for competition policy the purpose of this paper is to define the relevant economic market for steam and coking coal and to test the hypothesis of single world markets for these coal products methodologically the paper relies on two different tests for defining markets using both shipments data and price data the results from both methods point in the same direction in the case of coking coal the results indicate that the market is essentially global in scope and also that the market has become more integrated over time the results for steam coal show that the market is more regional in scope and there exist no clear tendencies of increased integration over time one policy implication of the finding that the steam coal market is more regional in scope and thus that the market boundary is smaller than if the market would have been international is that a merger and acquisition in this market likely would have been of a more concern for antitrust authorities than the same activity on the coking coal market

understanding china s renewable energy technology exports abstract china became a major player in renewable energy re technology during the 2000s chinese solar pv cell and module makers quickly dominated global sales in that industry while the country s wind turbine producers became poised for significant exports after capturing their rapidly growing home market in countries like the us chinese re technology strength has been met with claims of excessive governmental support of exports this study examines to what extent chinese firms solar pv and wind technology successes have been enabled by policy supports and whether those policies appear to have been driven by broader goals versus re export promotion per se the evidence suggests that governmental policy toward both wind and solar originated in a push for export competitive chinese companies but the specifics differed substantially due to the particular requirements of building technological capabilities in each export readiness necessitated substantial support for domestic installation of wind but not solar pv power the findings also suggest that as the decade of the 2000s progressed environmental goals played an increasing role alongside export promotion in motivating and shaping chinese re technology policies

dynamic steam coal market integration evidence from rolling cointegration analysis abstract the aim of the paper is twofold first to assess the dynamics of the integration process of the international steam coal prices and second to investigate the changes in the roles of particular coal prices in this market in the light of changes in the structure of supply and demand the analysis is based on steam coal prices set by the largest world exporters and importers on both the atlantic and the pacific markets we use weekly data spanning from october 5 2001 to march 28 2014 the aim is achieved in two stages during the first one we use the rolling trace test to identify the integration of the steam coal market and during the second one we apply the rolling weak exogeneity test to determine the roles of the participants of the international steam coal market namely price setters and price takers our main findings can be summarized in two observations firstly the main world steam coal prices are integrated and during the period when freight costs are higher the coal market integration is weaker and when the costs are lower the integration is stronger secondly the role of particular coal prices is not stable in time generally price setters appear in the market which covers greater shares in the physical coal trade although indonesia and russia have a great share in the global export their prices remain price takers during the whole period as a consequence although russia remains the largest coal exporter of the steam coal to the european market it cannot dictate its prices in this market

oil price shocks and real gdp growth empirical evidence for some oecd countries this study assesses empirically the effects of oil price shocks on the real economic activity of the main industrialized countries multivariate var analysis is carried out using both linear and non linear models the latter category includes three approaches employed in the literature namely the asymmetric scaled and net specifications evidence of a non linear impact of oil prices on real gdp is found in particular oil price increases are found to have an impact on gdp growth of a larger magnitude than that of oil price declines with the latter being statistically insignificant in most cases among oil importing countries oil price increases are found to have a negative impact on economic activity in all cases but japan moreover the effect of oil shocks on gdp growth differs between the two oil exporting countries in the sample with the uk being negatively affected by an oil price increase and norway benefiting from it

real options approach to renewable energy investments in mongolia developing nations are seeking alternative energy for electricity and one attractive alternative is renewable energy this research analyzes changing investment environment for renewable energy with real options approach and explores its potential in developing economies through studying the case of mongolia under coal price uncertainty to evaluate comparative attractiveness of either continuing to use coal based infrastructures or switching to renewable energy we formulate social revenue functions for the two environments assuming that renewable energy has lower external costs and coal prices follow geometric brownian motion gbm or geometric mean reverting gmr processes we find the optimal trigger coal prices for switching technologies with some scenarios in electricity price and externality characterize when renewable energy investments become attractive in contrast to conventional wisdom we identify some situations where the value of having more decision opportunities does not exceed that of a now or never decision for switching technologies and welfare losses are incurred the optimal trigger prices are higher in gbm than in gmr and our result raises the possible risks for waiting to switch energy to avoid welfare losses in mongolia the government should increase electricity prices or switch to renewable energy earlier especially when people pay more for the removal of externalities

the market for tradable ghg permits under the kyoto protocol a survey of model studies abstract this paper gathers results from 25 models of the market for tradable greenhouse gas ghg emission permits under the kyoto protocol due to diverging projections of emissions growth and different modeling approaches the model results differ substantially the average market volume is approximately 17 and 33 billion usd under global trading and annex b trading respectively including non carbon ghg lowers compliance costs and permit prices in the absence of the us permit demand roughly equals hot air from the former soviet union these countries can increase their revenues from selling permits by restricting supply which raises the permit price

potential cooperation in renewable energy between china and the united states of america abstract china and the united states of america us are developing renewable energy concurrently in this paper we seek the opportunities for potential cooperation between these two countries based on the analysis of annual economic data a mathematical model has been established to characterize correlations among gdp carbon dioxide emissions energy prices and the renewable energy cooperation index based on statistical analyses such cooperation can promote economic development reduce carbon dioxide emissions improve the environment and realize green growth if us monetary and technology resources and chinese markets are combined benefits can be mutually gained

carbon abatement and international spillovers carbon abatement policies in large open economies affect both the allocation of domestic resources and international market prices a change in international prices implies an indirect secondary burden or benefit for all trading countries based on simulations with a large scale computable general equilibrium model of global trade and energy use we show that international spillovers have important welfare implications for carbon abatement policies designed to meet exogenous emission reduction targets we present a decomposition of the total welfare effect of carbon abatement policies into a primary domestic market effect at constant international prices and a secondary international spillover impact as a result of changes in international prices this decomposition reveals the extent to which domestic abatement costs are increased or decreased as a result of the impact of carbon abatement on international prices

china s 2020 clean energy target consistency pathways and policy implications abstract china has proposed its 2020 clean energy target together with the climate change target of reducing co2 intensity of the economy by 40 45 below the 2005 level this article investigates the feasibility of these targets by testing their consistency under possible economic development scenarios we analyse these targets from two perspectives consistency with the overall economic growth and consistency with the international society s expectation on china s greenhouse gas ghg abatement responsibilities the main findings are under the recently announced 2020 target of gross domestic product gdp that is double the 2010 level the adoption of a 15 clean energy target could result in excessive primary energy demand and then with 40 45 gdp co2 intensity reduction co2 emissions in 2020 could substantially exceed the international energy agency iea 450 ppm scenario for china thus we propose a 17 clean energy target that can reconcile the domestic plan with international expectation our article also outlines the pathways to realise clean energy development into 2020 and proposes policy recommendations

coal subsidization and nuclear phase out in a general equilibrium model for germany the subsidization of domestic hard coal and the future of nuclear power generation are highly controversial issues of german energy policy this paper offers an analysis of a nuclear phase out scenario and a scenario of accelerated dismantling of coal subsidies within a dynamic general equilibrium model for germany the german economy is modeled in the context of the european union because european energy markets are becoming increasingly integrated it is found that the nuclear phase out has an effect both on the sectoral and the macroeconomic level including a modest decrease in gdp and a substantial increase in co2 emissions the accelerated removal of coal subsidies has a noticeable effect on the sectoral and macroeconomic structure as well but the effect on gdp is found to be rather negligible co2 emissions are reduced only slightly because domestic coal is mainly replaced by imported coal on the basis of these findings it is conjectured that policy making on these issues is likely to be based on politics rather than strictly macroeconomic considerations

gains from cartelisation in the oil market in this paper we ask whether opec still gains from cartelisation in the oil market despite low producer prices and a modest market share we apply two intertemporal equilibrium models of the global oil market one consisting of a cartel and a fringe and one describing a hypothetical competitive market comparing the outcome of these models we conclude that there are positive cartelisation gains of about 18 percent in the oil market in comparison with what pindyck 1978 found for the 1970s this may be considered as quite modest moreover we study whether the cartelisation gains to opec are altered by different moves by non opec producers or consumer countries generally we find that the relative cartelisation gains are unchanged one exception is exploration activities where we find that a major increase in non opec reserves could remove the cartelisation gains to opec completely in this case the opec countries could find themselves better off without the cartel

cartel formation and oligopoly structure a new assessment of the crude oil market while economic theorists regard opec as a perfect example of a long lasting cartel energy economists strongly deny such view applying the ideas of new empirical industrial organization a market description is derived cartel theory and empirical evidence fit together well stable long lasting cartels can be explained only for subclasses of market models and exactly such type of model is obtained here a variety of different market models is tested opec and the market for crude oil is best described by a price leader model

are optimal search rules reasonable and vice versa and does it matter anyway abstract the economics of search has made rapid progress in recent years and its results have contributed siginificantly to economic knowledge recent work has been particularly marked for the steadily increasing realism of the assumptions describing the environment surrounding the searcher however concomitant with this improvement has been a steady growth in the technical complexity of the problem supposedly solved by the searcher indeed many of the recent models are so complicated that their solutions are beyond the capacity of even modern day computers after elaborating on this impracticability of optimal search rules the paper goes on to consider two more realistic and practical alternatives the adoption of either suboptimal or reasonable rules paradoxically reasonable rules may in some circumstances be better than optimal rules the paper contains a preliminary discussion of what might be meant by reasonable behaviour and shows that a minimal set of criteria for reasonableness leads to the major qualitative conclusions at a market level of optimal search theory

market power and hot air in international emissions trading the impacts of us withdrawal from the kyoto protocol ten years after the initial climate change convention from rio in 1992 the industrialized world is finally likely to ratify the kyoto protocol which will impose legally binding greenhouse gas emission reductions on the developed world however the kyoto protocol will enter into force without the usa which withdrew under president bush in march 2001 accounting for hot air and market power of the former soviet union on emission permit markets it is shown that us withdrawal has important consequences on environmental effectiveness compliance costs and excess costs of market power under the kyoto protocol non compliance of the usa implies a dramatic decrease in environmental effectiveness as well as compliance costs of oecd countries whereas the former soviet union and transitional economies in eastern europe suffer from a huge decline in permit sales revenues excess costs of market power in permit trade increase in relative terms but decline substantially in absolute terms due to us withdrawal pol

deregulation of the japanese oil products market japan has maintained tight control over its oil market with the result that japanese consumers have faced higher net of tax oil product prices than other organization for economic co operation and development oecd consumers in april 1996 the market was deregulated we explore through simulation the welfare effect of this deregulation taking into account the pollution costs arising from increased emissions

energy security in china a quantitative analysis and policy implications abstract this study aims to examine how china s energy security has changed over 30 years of reform and the opening period it constructs a 4 as quantitative evaluation framework the availability of energy resources the applicability of technology the acceptability by society and the affordability of energy resources the quantitative results show that china s energy security was at its best during the sixth fyp period 1981 1985 but then deteriorated until it hit higher levels between 1995 and 2005 however it was still lower than the level reached during the sixth fyp period during the eleventh fyp period 2006 2010 the energy security situation deteriorated again differences in policy priority over the study period appear to affect the country s energy security status this study suggests that china needs to develop renewable energy resources on a large scale and pay more attention to emissions control to reverse the downward trend in energy security

public attitudes towards renewable energy technologies in norway the role of party preferences abstract transition to a sustainable society requires large scale conversion of the energy system to new renewable non fossil sources of energy this presupposes public support for new technologies which means the public must deal with challenges in terms of placement area requirements ecological degradation and price developments this paper discusses how citizens view renewable energy technologies it analyses responses to representative surveys of the norwegian population on the desirability of various energy technologies such as hydroelectric dams onshore and offshore wind energy bioenergy plants and for contrast gas plants with and without carbon capture and storage our main focus is on the influence of party political preference on views of renewable energy we find that the sometimes lukewarm enthusiasm for renewable energy technologies cannot be fully explained by existing theories and that political party preference has a larger impact on energy technology attitudes than previously believed

costly optimization an experiment abstract an experimental technique is developed and used to examine how human subjects make choices when optimization is costly the total cost of making a choice is defined to include two parts 1 the direct cost of making the decision and 2 the indirect cost of making a choice that is not best among the available alternatives the total cost of choice for subjects in the experimental economy ranged from 15 to 42 percent of the economy s resources the hypothesis that agents are rational on average was strongly rejected while the hypothesis that agents are rational in the long run fared better

non competitive market behaviour in the international coking coal market in this paper a primal dual programming model of international coking coal trade is constructed to test for non competitive market behaviour world trade in 1996 is simulated under perfect competition and various non competitive market structures statistical tests are used to compare simulated trade flows with actual data assuming cournot nash behaviour an all consumer oligopsony market structure is preferred to alternative models under an all consumer oligopsony world coking coal prices and trade are lower than under perfect competition under an oligopsonistic structure welfare gains from productivity increases in australian coal mines might largely accrue to coal buyers

intra industry trade with multinational firms recent developments including the analysis of firm level adjustment to falling trade costs have contributed to a revival of interest in intra industry trade iit most empirical work still relies on the standard grubel lloyd measure this however refers only to international trade disregarding income flows stimulated by repatriated profits of multinational firms given the overwhelming importance of the latter this is a major shortcoming this paper provides a guide to measurement and estimation of the determinants of bilateral iit shares from the perspective of new trade theory with multinational firms we develop an analytically solvable general equilibrium model to investigate the impact of investment costs multinational activities and income flows from repatriated profits we also discuss and quantify the bias of the grubel lloyd index associated with repatriated profit flows of multinationals using bias corrected versions of the grubel lloyd index as the dependent variable we demonstrate that the determinants motivated by our theoretical analysis offer important insights into variations in iit shares

marginal abatement costs of co2 emission reductions geographical flexibility and concrete ceilings an assessment using the poles model abstract the kyoto protocol envisage the setting up of flexibility mechanisms allowing annex b countries to fulfil their commitments to reducing greenhouse gases with respect for the principle of economic efficiency the current negotiations relate in particular to the possibility of setting up a system of tradable emissions permits for annex b countries and also of introducing ceilings to trade this paper analyses the stakes and economic potential of adopting this instrument both for those countries that made commitments in kyoto and for developing countries it is based on a formal approach that allows for a consistent framework of analysis the emission permit market is in fact simulated on the basis of a reference scenario and of marginal abatement cost curves and estimated by the poles model after analysing these marginal abatement cost curves and comparing them with those produced by other models we explore two different configurations for a competitive market a market limited to the annex b countries and a world market the results produced by the model show that widening the market to include developing countries is more effective than the annex b market solution it reduces the cost of implementing kyoto for oecd countries and at the same time allows the countries of the south to benefit from selling the permits this research also shows that introducing restrictions on exchanges for annex b countries could have a counter productive redistribution effect with the ethical argument that underlies that particular measure

welfare consequences of emission credit trading programs abstract the welfare consequences of moving from a command and control approach to pollution control to an emission credit trading program that attains the same environmental quality are shown to depend on the competitiveness of the output markets in which polluting firms compete if the output markets are competitive then the introduction of trading increases aggregate welfare in contrast if the output markets in which these firms participate are not competitive then the adoption of an emission credit trading program may reduce social welfare this is so even if emission credit markets are perfectly competitive

china s renewable energy law and its impact on renewable power in china progress challenges and recommendations for improving implementation beginning in 2006 china experienced a rapid growth in its renewable energy resources particularly wind power placing it among the world s leading countries in terms of renewable energy installation and generation this growth was greatly enabled by the renewable energy policy framework created by its landmark renewable energy law passed in 2005 and amended in 2009 which established key policies including national renewable energy targets a mandatory connection and purchase policy a national feed in tariff system and arrangements for cost sharing and funding of renewable energy incentives this paper describes the mechanisms established by the renewable energy law and its implementing regulations as well as the challenges china continues to face in improving its renewable energy policy framework to improve integration and utilization of renewable energy sources it also provides a comparison of the chinese renewable energy policy framework with those in the european union and united states finally the paper provides recommendations for improving implementation of the renewable energy law with regard to implementing a renewable power quota system and priority dispatch policy developing technical standards for connection of renewable resources with the grid development of a more advanced feed in tariff system and central local coordination of renewable energy development

economic search an experimental study this paper presents results of experiments designed to test several of the hypotheses present in the theoretical literature on optimal economic search first we test whether the subjects searchers actually search for wages in ways that are consistent with setting an optimal reservation wage we then proceed to determine experimentally the effects of risk aversion increased search costs changes in risk brought about by a mean preserving transformation of the distribution of wage offers the presence or absence of recall the existence of a finite horizon and the searcher s state of knowledge about the underlying distribution of wages in general we find that the searchers exhibit behavior that is consistent with that predicted by theory differences between risk neutral and risk averse searchers are found and the responses of both groups to changes in search costs in the degree of risk or in the state of knowledge are consistent with theoretical predictions

market power and transferable property rights the appeal of using markets as a means of allocating scarce resources stems in large part from the assumption that a market will approximate the competitive ideal when competition is not a foregone conclusion the question naturally arises as to how a firm might manipulate the market to its own advantage this paper analyzes the issue of market power in the context of markets for transferable property rights first a model is developed that explains how a single firm with market power might exercise its influence this is followed by an examination of the model in the context of a particular policy problem the control of particulate sulfates in the los angeles region

a panel data heterogeneous bayesian estimation of environmental kuznets curves for co2 emissions this article investigates the environmental kuznets curves ekc for co2 emissions in a panel of 109 countries during the period 1959 to 2001 the length of the series makes the application of a heterogeneous estimator suitable from an econometric point of view the results based on the hierarchical bayes estimator show that different ekc dynamics are associated with the different sub samples of countries considered on average more industrialized countries show evidence of ekc in quadratic specifications which nevertheless are probably evolving into an n shape based on their cubic specification nevertheless it is worth noting that the eu and not the umbrella group led by us has been driving currently observed ekc like shapes the latter is associated to monotonic income co2 dynamics the eu shows a clear ekc shape evidence for less developed countries consistently shows that co2 emissions rise positively with income though there are some signs of an ekc analyses of future performance neverthe

renewable energy consumption and economic growth evidence from a panel of oecd countries abstract this study examines the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth for a panel of twenty oecd countries over the period 1985 2005 within a multivariate framework given the relatively short span of the time series data a panel cointegration and error correction model is employed to infer the causal relationship the heterogeneous panel cointegration test reveals a long run equilibrium relationship between real gdp renewable energy consumption real gross fixed capital formation and the labor force with the respective coefficients positive and statistically significant the granger causality results indicate bidirectional causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in both the short and long run

sustainable development renewable resources and technological progress conflicts between optimality and sustainability are typical in the literature on sustainable development using the capital resource growth model pezzey and withagen 1998 scandinavian journal of economics 100 2 513 527 have proved that if natural resources are exhaustible the time path of consumption is single peaked declining from some point in time onwards this paper extends the model to include technical progress resource renewability extraction costs and population growth the main result is that for any constant returns to scale technology optimal paths can be sustainable only if the social discount rate does not exceed the sum of the rates of resource regeneration and augmentation the development of resource saving techniques is crucial for sustaining consumption per capita in the long run whereas capital depreciation and extraction costs are neutral with respect to this sustainability condition

can energy price regulations smooth price fluctuations evidence from china s coal sector abstract due to the dominance of coal in china s energy mix coal prices have always been a challenging part of pricing reform the recent frequent government interventions raise the key research questions what is the actual impact of price policies on coal price fluctuations and how can forward looking pricing policies be made by proposing a novel classification of coal pricing policies and introducing an expectation and forward looking coefficient the paper examines the relationship between coal price fluctuations and pricing policies using the generalized method of moments gmm method it shows that the lagging coal price and coal demand play a positive role in regulating coal prices while coal supply and marketization have significantly negative effects on coal price fluctuations the heterogeneous impacts of price policies are due to differences in market players expectations policy instruments and the methods of policy release in addition china s coal pricing policy portfolio from 2013 to 2016 exerted synergy effects on the restraint of coal price fluctuations as the forward looking coefficient was considerably low the government s intervention behaviors were obviously biased towards ex post facto responses the paper suggests short run and long run policies to advance marketization of coal prices amid the energy transition

china s coal price disturbances observations explanations and implications for global energy economies since china decontrolled coal prices its coal price has risen steadily and been unusually volatile in 2011 in particular high coal prices and capped electricity prices in china discouraged coal fired power generation triggering widespread power shortages we suggest that these coal price disturbances could be symptomatic of a major change in pricing dynamics of global fossil fuel markets with increasing correspondence between coal and oil prices globally historically global coal prices have been more stable and lower than oil and natural gas prices on a per heat basis in recent years however coal prices have been increasingly volatile worldwide and have tracked other fossil fuel prices more closely meanwhile the recent development of unconventional gas has substantially decoupled us natural gas and oil prices technically low us natural gas prices with potential fuel switching could drive us domestic coal prices lower however this effect is unlikely to counteract the overall trend in increasing coal consumption globally china s market size and unique partially controlled energy system make its reform agenda a key force in the global economy policymakers in the us e u and elsewhere should monitor china s economic reform agenda to anticipate and respond to changes accompanying china s increasing importance in the global energy economy

the world price of coal a significant increase in the seaborne trade for coal over the past 20 years has unified formerly separate coal markets into a world market in which prices move in tandem by virtue of its large domestic market the usa has become the residual supplier and price setter in the world coal market changes in multifactor productivity have been the primary cause of the long term fluctuations in coal prices that have been observed in the usa since the end of the second world war and in the world coal market

impact of inter sectoral trade on national and global co2 emissions an empirical analysis of china and us abstract this paper attempts to discuss the co2 emissions embodied in sino us international trade using a sector approach based on an input output model established in this study we quantify the impact of sino us international trade on national and global co2 emissions our initial findings reveal that in 2005 the us reduced 190 13 mt co2 emissions through the consumption of imported goods from china while increasing global co2 emissions by about 515 25 mt similarly china reduced 178 62 mt co2 emissions through the consumption of us goods while reducing global co2 emissions by 129 93 mt sino us international trade increased global co2 emissions by 385 32 mt as a whole of which the chemical fabricated metal products non metallic mineral products and transportation equipment sectors contributed an 86 71 share therefore we suggest that accelerating the adjustment of china s trade structure and export of us advanced technologies and experience related to clean production and energy efficiency to china as the way to reduce the negative impact of sino us trade on national and global co2 emissions this behavior should take into account the processing and manufacturing industries as a priority especially the chemical fabricated metal products non metallic mineral products and transportation equipment sectors

investigations concerning the dynamics of consumer behavior in uncertain environments this paper reports the results of several experiments investigating dynamic consumer behavior when consumers know their incomes and prices but are uncertain about their preferences we find that they typically adopt a two step approach to locating optimal consumption bundles initially a grid search method is employed this is followed by a gradient search method an interesting phenomenon observed in many of our experiments is a tendency to consume a bundle well away from the optimum immediately after the optimum is located the effects of income and price changes are also studied

beyond kyoto backstop technologies and endogenous prices on co2 permits and fossil fuels this paper analyses the markets for fossil fuels given that the limits the kyoto protocol sets on co2 emissions from annex b countries extend beyond 2008 2012 a forward looking model with endogenous prices for fossil fuels is applied under different assumptions concerning the technological progress for a carbon free backstop technology both the time profile of the international permit price needed for the kyoto forever targets as well as the implications through reduced demand and lower producer prices for fossil fuels are calculated the permit price has to rise at least up to 2030 in order to fulfil the emission targets from then on the necessary permit price shows different future developments dependent on when the backstop technology starts to replace oil since changes in the availability of the backstop technology shift the time profile of the permit price the loss of petroleum wealth for oil and gas producers varies between the scenarios but is never more than 20 findings indicate that the

identifying a dominant firm s market power among sellers of a homogeneous product an application to alcoa this paper measures the extent of alcoa s dominant firm market power in the post war us aluminium industry an indirect procedure that combines estimation of the fringe supply elasticity market demand elasticity and extant market share data generates the estimate of alcoa s residual demand elasticity which infers the firm s market power results show that alcoa s market power declines with fringe s expansion

going green trade specialisation dynamics in the solar photovoltaic sector abstract the present study aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of trade flows and the domestic value creation of the major solar photovoltaic industry at the world level solar technologies convert light and heat from the sun into useful energy the use of the sun s energy can not only reduce the consumption of conventional fuels thus reducing the emission of detrimental greenhouse gases but it can also enable a gain in enhanced fuel and energy security along with lessening costs in addition green technologies and industries can promote economic growth and international competitiveness and can offer new business and employment opportunities it becomes therefore extremely important to deeply explore the dynamics of the solar photovoltaic sector specifically the present work analyses the main global trends of this sector and sketches the key players on the world market including producers installers and top traders based on an analysis of trade flows at the 6 digit level the international specialisation patterns are investigated and the role of various market and trade drivers including subsidies in the uptake of solar technologies is identified and examined

tradeable emission permits regulations in the presence of imperfectly competitive product markets welfare implications in the present paper we analyse the interaction of a competitive market for emission permits with an oligopolistic product market it is well known that a competitive permits market achieves the cost minimizing distribution of abatement effort among the polluting firms for a given reduction in emissions however when the product market is oligopolistic it may redistribute production inefficiently among firms it has been suggested that this inefficiency can outweigh the gains obtained from using emission permits instead of command and control although this argument is clearly correct under full information it is shown in the present paper that it reverses under incomplete information in particular it is shown that when tradeable emission permits are specified according to the standard textbook example they yield higher social welfare than the command and control regulation

payoff dominance vs cognitive transparency in decision making i introduction there is a general question about how well laboratory markets work in eliciting true preferences given the low opportunity costs of making errors as in harrison 1989 vernon smith 1982 set out a series of conditions that must be adhered to if a laboratory market investigation is to provide insight into economic behavior in naturally occurring markets the opportunity cost question posed above is covered under smith s payoff dominance and reward saliency precepts for laboratory market experiments if the experimental setting is to elicit true preferences from the subjects the monetary payoffs in the experiment must be salient and dominate potential extraneous influences on subject behavior this paper reports on three series of experiments which employ the becker degroot marshak bdm mechanism to investigate the interaction between payoff dominance reward saliency and cognitive effort in the decision task the bdm mechanism is well suited to this task because it involves only individual choice is theoretically incentive compatible and offers a high degree of experimenter control over payoffs initial information and feedback on the results of decisions becker degroot and marschak 1964 introduced the following preference elicitation mechanism individuals state the most they would be willing to pay wtp 1 for a good then a random price is drawn from a distribution known to the individuals if the stated value is greater than or equal to the random price the individual buys the good at the randomly determined price otherwise the individual does not buy the good the bdm bidding mechanism can be shown to be incentive compatible the intuition is straightforward it is not in the individual s interest to understate true wtp if the random buying price falls between the stated wtp and the true wtp the individual has foregone a beneficial trade it is also not in an individual s interest to overstate true wtp if the random buying price is greater than the true value but less than the stated value the individual will be required to buy the good at a price greater than true wtp a more formal proof is easy to construct 2 let v the true value of one unit of the auction good b the bid submitted to purchase one unit of the good r the price randomly determined to be paid if the good is purchased p r probability that price r is randomly selected y sup o initial income u y utility a function of money income and the value of the good and e initial monetary balance provided in an experiment in the wtp version of the bdm auction the good is purchased if b greater than or equal to r with the subject paying only r and not purchased if b less than r in experiments using the bdm the subject cannot bid more than the experimental balance e so it must be that v less than e if the experiment is to be demand revealing assuming that subjects maximize expected utility they will submit bid b that maximizes eu integral of p r u y sup o e v r dr between limits b and 0 integral of p r u y sup o e dr between limits e and b the first integral describes the expected payoff for random prices r below the bid b and the second integral describes the expected payoff for random prices between the bid b and the maximum possible bid as limited by the balance e the maximum over b occurs when the derivative of eu with respect to b is zero in other words when deu db p b u y e v b u y e 0 so long as p b greater than 0 i e there is some probability the offered bid will be the price the above implies that the maximum occurs when b v in other words it is individually optimal to submit a bid b equal to one s true value v for the commodity although the bdm is incentive compatible in theory it is an empirical question whether it has this property in practice

the evolution of hard coal trade in the atlantic market abstract this article analyses the evolution of hard coal trade in west europe known as the atlantic market from the 1980s to the end of 2002 it investigates the development of trade pattern nature of contracts price setting supply demand and the future of trade the region s demand has underpinned steam coal in the recent past in 2002 steam coal imports reached 155 0 mt while coking coal imports were 43 2 mt the market is progressing to become a perfect market transparent and simple in operation the spot market for coal has made the transaction bring into line the current market situations historically long term contracts were usual and concluded between producer and consumer recently there are still annual contracts but with a small number of deals the percentage of spot market has risen from 14 in 1983 to 80 in 2003 previously coal price settlement was referenced by south africa s and the us offers now spot price indices have become important in price setting the increasing power needs the advantages of reserves conditions and market systems open the opportunities for coal demand in the forthcoming years however these opportunities are not without problems the demand for reducing environmental impacts and the efforts for seeking capital to fund the investment are some of the challenges to be addressed