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on Energy Economics |
| By: | Albert Ballinger; Gerald P. Dwyer, Jr.; Ann B. Gillette |
| Abstract: | We provide substantial evidence that the futures market for West Texas Intermediate crude oil increased the short-term volatility of the cash price of crude oil. We show that the variability of prices increased using both published posted prices and transaction prices for producers. This increased volatility in the price of crude oil may reflect information aggregated into the price, an increase the variance of shocks to the price of crude oil, or noise in the futures price that affects the cash price. We present evidence from experiments consistent with the interpretation that information aggregation not feasible in a posted-price market can explain at least part of the increase in variance. This evidence supports the proposition that information not previously aggregated into the cash price for crude oil is at least part of the reason for the greater variability of the cash price after the opening of the futures market and provides at least one example in which a futures market increased the volatility of the cash market, and prices became more efficient. |
| Date: | 2004 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2004-28&r=ene |
| By: | Leon Bettendorf (Faculty of Economics, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam); Stephanie van der Geest (Faculty of Economics, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam); Gerard Kuper (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes adjustments in the Dutch retail gasoline prices. We estimate an error correction model on changes in the daily retail price for gasoline (taxes excluded) for the period 1996-2004 taking care of volatility clustering by estimating an EGARCH model. It turns out the volatility process is asymmetrical: an unexpected increase in the producer price has a larger effect on the variance of the producer price than an unexpected decrease. We do not find strong evidence for amount asymmetry. However, there is a faster reaction to upward changes in spot prices than to downward changes in spot prices. This implies timing or pattern asymmetry. This asymmetry starts three days after the change in the spot price and lasts for four days. |
| Keywords: | Asymmetry; Retail gasoline prices; Volatility |
| JEL: | D43 E31 |
| Date: | 2005–04–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20050040&r=ene |
| By: | Germán Humberto Hernández Leal |
| Abstract: | El departamento del Meta extrae petróleo crudo desde el año 1976, ubicándose, en la actualidad, entre los tres mayores productores del país. En consecuencia, con la influencia de su producción y las regalías, que han elevado el PIB departamental y fortalecido sus finanzas públicas, deben garantizarse amplías oportunidades de inversión, tanto pública como privada. El objetivo de este estudio es, entonces, observar el impacto socioeconómico y el manejo dado a los recursos de las regalías petroleras a partir del año 2000, en el que se incrementaron notablemente los recaudos de esta entidad territorial por este concepto. El Meta, está todavía en la fase de aumento de dichos ingresos y tiene aún la oportunidad de dirigirlos hacía proyectos que contribuyan, en general, a consolidar el desarrollo económico regional y, concretamente, a mejorar el nivel de vida de su población, en lo que respecta al acceso a servicios públicos básicos como: acueducto, alcantarillado, energía eléctrica, educación y salud, los cuales no han registrado mejoras significativas, pese a las orientaciones dadas por la normatividad que estipula la destinación de las regalías. |
| Keywords: | Explotación petrolera, |
| Date: | 2004–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000124:000607&r=ene |
| By: | Jan Bruha; Delia Ionascu; Byeongju Jeong |
| Abstract: | We examine the role of organized labor in the restructuring experience of two coal mining regions in the 1990’s: Ostrava in the Czech Republic and the Jiu Valley region in Romania. Under similar external circumstances, the Ostrava region undertook gradual restructuring from early on whereas in Jiu Valley there was no restructuring until 1997, followed by massive layoffs over two years. We conduct a quantitative exercise that accounts for the mine productivity, the labor market conditions, and the constraints in compensating the laid-off miners. We show that the delay in restructuring in Jiu Valley was inefficient: gradual restructuring with compensation would have benefited both the miners and the government. The proximate reason for the delay was the Jiu Valley miners’ action against restructuring. We interpret their action in part as a behavioral pattern under a perceived threat to their livelihood. This accords with their history of militancy in contrast to Ostravian miners. |
| Keywords: | organized labor; restructuring; coal; transition; welfare |
| JEL: | O17 J50 P31 R11 |
| Date: | 2005–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wdi:papers:2005-773&r=ene |
| By: | P Nair (ICFAI University); Deepak Kumar (ICFAI University Press) |
| Abstract: | The Electricity Bill, 2003 passed by Parliament promises to usher in sweeping changes. The Bill seeks to provide a legal framework for enabling reforms and restructuring of the power sector. It simplifies administrative procedures by integrating the Indian Electricity Act, 1910, the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1948 and the Electricity Regulatory Commissions Act, 1998 into a single Act. The Bill has become an Act now after the Presidential assent and notification by the Ministry of Power on June 10, 2003. The Electricity Act, 2003 is based on the principles of promoting competition, protecting consumers’ interests and providing power to all. The Act has freed the generation of electricity from licensing, and has liberalized the captive power policy. Moreover, it provides open access to transmission and distribution network, and has laidout the stringent penalties for power theft. The new legislation can usher in paradigm shifts in the power sector. Competition will be possible not just in generation,but also in every facet of the sector including distribution. Moreover, private sector investment will be facilitated by greater transparency that will come about. The Bill is a consolidation of the laws relating to generation, transmission, distribution, trading and use of electricity and facilitates all measures that are conducive for the development of the sector. |
| Keywords: | Electricity , Bill , |
| JEL: | K |
| Date: | 2005–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwple:0505005&r=ene |
| By: | Manel Antelo (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to examine optimal environmental taxation in an incomplete-information two-period model in which a monopolistic firm produces and pollutes. It is assumed that the polluting firm is privately informed about its costs of production, and the policymaker, which can only infer the firm's costs from observing the output produced in the first period, has the chance to set environmental taxes to affect emissions; the emitter of pollution may then choose a non-optimal level of production in such a period in order to manipulate the policymaker's beliefs concerning its costs. If the policymaker values environmental quality sufficiently, the low-cost polluter has an incentive to misrepresent itself as a high-cost firm in order to secure a low environmental tax in the second period. This leads the high-cost polluting firm to produce, in the first period, an output level that is not higher than output which would be optimal if only short-term considerations were taken into account. The optimal environmental tax rate in the first period, when the firm's output is a signal of its cost, is then lower than or equal to what it would be if the firm's output was not a signal of firm's costs. The expected emissions in the former context are also lower than or equal to those in the latter case. By contrast, when the policymaker's valuation of the environment is sufficiently low, the environmental tax is negative (a subsidy per unit of pollutant emitted) in both the signaling and non-signaling contexts and no less in the former context than in the latter. |
| Keywords: | Environmental tax and subsidy policy, monopolistic polluting firm, vertical asymmetric information, signaling and non-signaling |
| JEL: | D62 D82 L13 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cea:doctra:e2005_08&r=ene |
| By: | Gaspar J. Llanes Díaz- Salazar (Univesidad Pablo de Olavide); Manuel Alejandro Cardenete (Univesidad Pablo de Olavide); Carmen Rodríguez Morilla (Univesidad de Sevilla) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to show the utility of the so-called Social Accounting Matrix and Environmental Accounts (SAMEA) for economic and environmental efficiency analysis. The article use the SAMEA for Spain in 2000, applied to the water resource and to greenhouses gases emissions. The estimation has been made from official data of the INE. This matrix is used like central core of a multisectorial model of the economic and environmental performance, and is calculated, what have been called "domestics multipliers SAMEA" and their decomposition into characteristic, direct, indirect and induced effects. These multipliers show some of the valuation economic and environmental efficiency. Also, is made an application of these multipliers that allows to appreciate that there is no causal interrelation between the sectors with a higher economic backward linkages and higher environmental deterioration backward linkages. |
| Keywords: | Input-Output Models; Evaluation of Environmental Effects; Air Pollution; Environmental Accounting |
| JEL: | C68 Q51 Q52 Q56 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cea:doctra:e2005_09&r=ene |