Michele Moretto

Managing Migration through Quotas: an Option-theory Perspective

Recent European Legislation on immigration has revealed a particular paradox on migration policies. On the one hand, the trend of recent legislation points to the increasing closure of frontiers (OECD 1999, 2001,2004), also by using immigration quotas. On the other hand, there is an increase of regularization, i.e., European policies are becoming less tight. Our aim here is to study these counterbalanced and opposite policies in European immigration legislation in a unified framework . To do this, we have used a real option approach to migration choice that assumes that the decision to migrate can be described as an irreversible investment decision where quotas represent an upper bound limit. Our results show that the paradox of counterbalancing immigration policies is not odd but it could be in line with an optimal policy to control migration inflow. In particular, we show that if the government controls the information related to the immigration quota system it could delay the mass entry of immigrants maintaining, in the long run, the required immigration stock and controlling the flows in the short-run.

Investment Size and Firm's Value Under Profit Sharing Regulation

In this article we analyse the effects of different regulatory schemes (price cap and profit sharing) on a firm’s investment of endogenous size. Using a real option approach in continuous time, we show that profit sharing does not affect a firm’s start-up decision relative to a pure price cap scheme. Unless the threshold after which profit sharing intervenes is very high, however, introducing a profit sharing element delays further investments: this decreases the present value of total investment. We also evaluate the reduction in the firm’s value due to profit sharing, linking this reduction to the option value of future investments.

Managing Migration Through Conflicting Policies: An Option-Theory Perspective

Recent European legislation on immigration has revealed a particular paradox on migration policies. On the one hand, the trend of recent legislation points to the increasing closure of frontiers (OECD 1999, 2001,2004), trying to limit the immigrants’ stock. On the other hand, there is an increase in regularization, i.e., European policies are becoming less tight. Our aim here is to develop a theoretical model that tries to explain if it is better for the government to tighten or relax limits for immigrants in order to control migration inflows better. To this end, we use a real option approach to migration choice that assumes that the decision to migrate can be described as an irreversible investment decision. In our model the government has in mind a specific upper bound on immigrants, and the policies adopted (admission requirements or regularizations) are signals for each potential migrant that reveal information about this limit. Our results show that promoting uncertainty over this migration upper bound may improve the government’s control on migration inflows (quotas). This could explain that the paradox of counterbalancing policies is not an odd evidence. In particular, we show that if the government controls the information related to the immigration stock it could delay the mass entry of immigrants, maintaining the required stock in the long run and controlling the flows in the short-run.

Solar Grid Parity Dynamics in Italy: A Real Option Approach

Over the past three years Italy has witnessed a rapid growth in the photovoltaic energy market, followed by an equally sudden decline when the government decided to reduce the incentives. This sharp change in the trend of the market calls into question the achievement of Grid Parity and the possibility that the market is able to develop independently. Starting from the standard Grid Parity Model, widely used for the photovoltaic (PV) market, we internalize the uncertainty surrounding both the energy price and PV module costs, to forecast the dynamics of the Italian PV market. We show that these sources of uncertainty can delay the Grid Parity timing of several years compared to current forecasts, well describing the current market situation.

Pollution Accumulation and Firm Incentives to Accelerate Technological Change Under Uncertain Private Benefits

The paper explores the relationships between the design of public incentives and the policy-makers desired timing of abandonment of a polluting technology, when this requires an irreversible private investment and the firm faces uncertain appropriable benefits from the technological change. Two regulatory approaches are examined. Firstly, we consider the quite common one of lowering the private investment cost, through a subsidy, in order to bridge the gap between the private and the policy-makers desired timing of environmental innovation. Secondly, we consider a policy scenario where the regulator, instead of simply lowering the investments rental price, also stimulates abandonment of the polluting technology by reducing – through appropriate announcements – the uncertainty surrounding the technological switchs private profitability. We then compare the two approaches and show the latters benefits, in terms of the policys effectiveness and/or budgetary savings.

Irreversible investment with uncertainty and strategic behavior

Abstract The paper provides a model of technology adoption in the case where adopting alone is more expensive than adopting when others have already done so (network effect). In addition, if each agent gains at the expense of his rivals, he may also have an incentive for ‘preemptive adoption’. We deal with these two issues in a dynamic programing framework, where adoption is seen as a strategic switching time decision problem for agents facing an ongoing stochastic operating benefit plus sunken investment costs. The model defines the option value of investing for a continuous time stochastic game. In the case of network benefits alone, agents follow a stationary bandwagon strategy , representing the effect caused by a war of attrition. Yet, as network benefits reduce adoption costs after an agent has switched, rivals may follow suit. In the opposite case, where going first gives the innovator a higher payoff the bandwagon rule is turned over and the option value of investing first may be lower than that of going second. This gives rise to sequential adoption.

Competition and irreversible investments under uncertainty

This paper examines the effect of competition on the irreversible investment decisions under uncertainty as a generalization of the “real option” approach. We examine this issue with reference to an industry where each firm has only one investment opportunity which is completely irreversible and the product market reveals an inverted U-shape relationship between firm profits and industry size. That is, there are positive externalities for low level of the market size and negative externalities at high level of the market size. In the latter case, which corresponds to the traditional competitive industries, firms invest sequentially as market profitability develops. In the former case, which corresponds to industries in which investments are mutually beneficial, firms invest simultaneously after profitability of the market has developed sufficiently to capture all network benefits and to recover the option value of waiting. Put together, these extensions of the “real option” analysis, with strategic interactions, may help to explain both the cases of rapid and sudden developments such as the recent internet investments and the cases of prolonged start-up problems while waiting for the market to develop as the story of fax machines shows.

Investment in Hospital Care Technology Under Different Purchasing Rules: A Real Option Approach

Quality of health care is the product of several factors as the literature has long recognized. In this paper we focus on the relationship between quality and investment in health technology by analysing the optimal investment decision in a new health care technology of a representative hospital that maximizes its surplus in an uncertain environment. The new technology allows the hospital to increase the quality level of the care provided, but the investment is irreversible. The paper uses the framework of the real option literature to show how the purchaser might influence the quality level by setting a quality-contingent long-term contract with the hospital.The investment in new technology is in fact best incentivated within a long-term contract where the number of treatments reimbursed depends on the level of investment made when the technology is new. In this way, asymmetry of information does not affect the outcome of the contract. In our model in fact the purchaser can verify the level of the investment only at the end of each period but the purchasing rule has an anticipating effect on the decision to invest.

Start-up Entry Strategies: Employer vs. Nonemployer firms

From 1997 to 2001 we observe in the Usa a faster growth in the number of Nonemployer firms (NF) vis a vis Employer firms (EF). The diverse speed of net entry may be due to particular internal organisation of the two types of firms and the effect that this has on the reactions to market uncertainty. However, the set of internal organizations of firms is larger than that made up simply by EFs and NFs, in particular among newborn firms, since we observe corporate start-ups with employees, firms owned and managed by their founders who are simultaneously the employees and, finally, non corporate enterprises. The second class of firms mostly belongs to the category of NFs, according to US nomenclature, while non corporate firms may belong to either category. Our curiosity is attracted by different entry patterns of NFs and EFs and our aim is to interpret them. According to recent literature, firms carry out an irreversible investment, such as entry, only if market prices are strictly larger than average total costs (Marshallian point). However, the trigger price that makes firms become active is affected by institutional rules, the existence of profit sharing, efficiency wages, exit options - i.e. partial reversibility -, financial constraints. Then, the internal organization of a newborn firm may make the difference. In a continuous time stochastic environment, where firms bear a sunk cost, we model entry as a growth option. On the trace of distinct objective functions we show that NFs and EFs have specific entry patterns in terms of output price and/or size. Why? Simply because they react in diverse fashions to market price volatility. In this sense we are able to show that, in most cases, the NF is locally less risky. This makes the NF better suited to enter under conditions of higher volatility. This exactly corresponds to what happened during the years between 1997-2001.

Concession Bidding Rules and Investment Time Flexibility

We study the competition to operate an infrastructure service by developing a model where firms report a two-dimensional sealed bid: the price to consumers and the concession fee paid to the government. Two alternative bidding rules are considered in this paper. One rule consists of awarding the exclusive right of exercise to the firm that reports the lowest price. The other consists of granting the franchise to the bidder offering the highest fee. We compare the outcome of these rules with reference to two alternative concession arrangements. The former imposes the obligation to immediately undertake the investment required to roll-out the service. The latter allows the winning bidder to optimally decide the investment time. The focus is on the effect of bidding rules and managerial flexibility on expected social welfare. We find that the two bidding rules provide the same outcome only when the contract restricts the autonomy of the franchisee, and we identify the conditions under which time flexibility can provide a higher social value.