William Shobe

An Experimental Study of Auctions versus Grandfathering to Assign Pollution Permits

We experimentally study auctions versus grandfathering in the initial assignment of pollution permits that can be traded in a secondary spot market. Low and high emitters compete for permits in the auction, while permits are assigned for free under grandfathering. In theory, trading in the spot market should erase inefficiencies due to initial mis-allocations. In the experiment, high emitters exercise market power in the spot market and permit holdings under grandfathering remain skewed towards high emitters. Furthermore, the opportunity costs of “free�? permits are fully “passed through.�? In the auction, the majority of permits are won by low emitters, reducing the need for spot-market trading. Auctions generate higher consumer surplus and slightly lower product prices in the laboratory markets. Moreover, auctions eliminate the large “windfall profits�? that are observed in the treatment with free, grandfathered permit allocations.

Trading Programs for Environmental Management: Reflections on the Air and Water Experiences

Emission and effluent trading programs are increasingly being advocated for the nations air and water quality programs. However, important distinctions must be drawn between credit and allowance trading, based on how much decision-making authority is transferred from regulators to dischargers. Credit trading programs are extensions of command-and-control regulation. Allowance trading programs, like markets, decentralize decisions on the means to control discharges and the location of that control. A review of existing trading programs finds allowance trading programs stimulate more aggressive pollution prevention behavior and result in lower compliance costs than credit trading.

RETHINKING ENVIRONMENTAL FEDERALISM IN A WARMING WORLD

Climate change policy analysis has focused almost exclusively on national policy and even on harmonizing climate policies across countries, implicitly assuming that harmonization of climate policies at the subnational level would be mandated or guaranteed. We argue that the design and implementation of climate policy in a federal union will diverge in important ways from policy design in a unitary government. National climate policies built on the assumption of a unitary model of governance are unlikely to achieve the expected outcome because of interactions with policy choices made at the subnational level. In a federal system, the information and incentives generated by a national policy must pass through various levels of subnational fiscal and regulatory policy. Effective policy design must recognize both the constraints and the opportunities presented by a federal structure of government. Furthermore, policies that take advantage of the federal structure of government can improve climate governance outcomes.

An experimental analysis of auctioning emission allowances under a loose cap

The direct sale of emissions allowances by auction is an emerging characteristic of cap-and-trade programs. This study is motivated by the observation that all of the major implementations of cap-and-trade regulations for the control of air pollution have started with a generous allocation of allowances relative to recent emissions history, a situation we refer to as a “loose cap.” Typically more stringent reductions are achieved in subsequent years of a program. We use an experimental setting to investigate the effects of a loose cap environment on a variety of auction types. We find all auction formats studied are efficient in allocating emissions allowances, but auction revenues tend to be lower relative to competitive benchmarks when the cap is loose. Regardless of whether the cap is tight or loose, the different auction formats tend to yield comparable revenues toward the end of a series of auctions. However, aggressive bidding behavior in initial discriminatory auctions yields higher revenues than in other auction formats, a difference that disappears as bidders learn to adjust their bids closer to the cutoff that separates winning and losing bids.

Price Discovery in Emissions Permit Auctions

Auctions are increasingly being used to allocate emissions allowances (“permits�?) for cap and trade and common-pool resource management programs. These auctions create thick markets that can provide important information about changes in current market conditions. This paper reports a laboratory experiment in which half of the bidders experienced unannounced increases in their willingness to pay for permits. The focus is on the extent to which the predicted price increase due to the demand shift is reflected in sales prices under alternative auction formats. Price tracking is good for uniform-price, sealed-bid auctions and for multiround clock auctions, with or without end-of-round information about excess demand. Price inertia is observed for “pay as bid�? (discriminatory) auctions, especially for a continuous discriminatory format in which bids could be changed at will during a prespecified time window, in part because “sniping�? in the final moments blocked the full effect of the demand shock.

Price and Quantity 'Collars' for Stabilizing Emissions Allowance Prices: An Experimental Analysis of the EU ETS Market Stability Reserve

This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment with financially motivated participants that is used to compare alternative proposals for managing the time path of emissions allowance prices in the face of random firm-specific and market-level structural shocks. In this setting, market performance measures such as social surplus are enhanced by the use of a price collar (auction reserve price and soft price cap). Comparable performance enhancements are not observed with the implementation of a quantity collar that adjusts auction quantities in response to privately held inventories of unused allowances. In fact, in some specifications, the quantity collar performed worse than no stabilization policy at all. The experiment implemented a specific set of structural elements, and extrapolation to other settings should be done with caution. Nevertheless, an examination of the observed behavioral patterns and deviations from optimal behavior suggests that a price collar has an important (although perhaps not exclusive) role to play in constructing an effective market stability reserve policy.