The Tobin Tax A Review of the Evidence

The debate about the Tobin Tax, and other financial transaction taxes (FTT), gives rise to strong views both for and against. Unfortunately, little of this debate is based on the now considerable body of evidence about the impact of such taxes. This review attempts to synthesise what we know from the available theoretical and empirical literature about the impact of FTTs on volatility in financial markets. We also review the literature on how a Tobin Tax might be implemented, the amount of revenue that it might realistically produce, and the likely incidence of the tax. We conclude that, contrary to what is often assumed, a Tobin Tax is feasible and, if appropriately designed, could make a significant contribution to revenue without causing major distortions. However, it would be unlikely to reduce market volatility and could even increase it.Tobin tax, financial transaction taxes, volatility, revenue, incidence, feasibility

The influence of seller learning and time constraints on sequential bargaining in an artificial perishable goods market

This paper investigates the formation of prices in a perishable goods market where agents bargain repeatedly through pair-wise interactions. After extensive field observations, we chose to focus on two aspects that seem important to actors of this market : the passage of time and update in judgement when gathering information. The main feature of the market is that a seller bargaining with a buyer has incomplete information about buyer's willingness to pay and is not sure how her trading partner will evaluate an offer or compare it with other options. On the other hand, buyers have limited time to look for good sand cannot meet all possible sellers before making a decision. Hence agents cannot calculate the best price to offer but receive information through limited interactions, and use this information to choose their actions. An agent-based model was built to represent a frame work that mimics the observed market institution and where agent's possible behaviours and learning was made as consistent as possible with gathered data. Simulations were run, first for sensitivity analysis concerning main parameters, then to test the dependence of agents'learning to (a) the time buyers can spend on the market and (b) the frequency of update in learning by sellers. To validate the model, features produced by the simulated market are compared to the stylized facts gathered for negotiation about four goods. We reproduce the main features of the data on the dynamics of offers, transaction prices and agents'behavior during the bargaining phases.Cet article porte sur la formation des prix dans un marché de biens périssables où les agents négocient de gré à gré de façon répétée. Après avoir accompli un important travail sur le terrain, nous choisissons de nous concentrer sur deux aspects importants pour les acteurs : le temps et les changements de jugements des individus qui reçoivent de nouvelles informations. Ce marché se caractérise par une méconnaissance par le vendeur des critères de choix de son client (valeur de réservation, comment ce client évalue les offres reçues et les compare aux autres options sur le marché). D'autre part, les acheteurs ont une contrainte temporelle et ne peuvent pas rencontrer tous les vendeurs avant de prendre une décision. Ainsi, acheteurs et vendeurs ne peuvent pas calculer le meilleur prix à offrir ou à accepter mais, recevant des informations au cours de leurs rencontres, ils adaptent leur comportement à cette information. Nous avons construit un modèle multi-agents dont l'environnement reproduit un marché empirique (le MIN, marché de gros en fruits et légumes de Marseille) et dont les agents ont des règles de décision et d'apprentissage cohérentes avec les données de terrain. Des simulations ont permis de tester l'impact marginal de chaque paramètre puis de deux variables précises : (a) le temps que les acheteurs passent sur le marché et (b) la fréquence de réévaluation de ses croyances par le vendeur. Pour valider le modèle, nous comparons les faits produits par le marché simulé et ceux provenant de données empiriques réelles concernant les négociations et transactions pour 4 types de biens. Nous reproduisons les faits principaux concernant la dynamique des offres, les prix des transactions et l'émergence de négociation

Prices, planners, and producers : an agency problem in Soviet industry, 1928-1950

Soviet planners developed the “unchanged prices of 1926/27” to facilitate the solution of an agency problem -- the regulation of self-interested producers as they worked to fulfil plans for heterogeneous products denominated in rubles. The system limited but did not eliminate producers’ opportunistic behavior, which took the form of inflating the plan prices of new products. Through the 1930s and 1940s the “unchanged” prices proved resistant to reform, and following their abolition in 1950 the system was soon afterwards reinstated with a new base year. The history of the “unchanged” prices illustrates the limits of command

Market-Based Task Allocation Mechanisms for Limited Capacity Suppliers

This paper reports on the design and comparison of two economically-inspired mechanisms for task allocation in environments where sellers have finite production capacities and a cost structure composed of a fixed overhead cost and a constant marginal cost. Such mechanisms are required when a system consists of multiple self-interested stakeholders that each possess private information that is relevant to solving a system-wide problem. Against this background, we first develop a computationally tractable centralised mechanism that finds the set of producers that have the lowest total cost in providing a certain demand (i.e. it is efficient). We achieve this by extending the standard Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism to allow for multi-attribute bids and by introducing a novel penalty scheme such that producers are incentivised to truthfully report their capacities and their costs. Furthermore our extended mechanism is able to handle sellers' uncertainty about their production capacity and ensures that individual agents find it profitable to participate in the mechanism. However, since this first mechanism is centralised, we also develop a complementary decentralised mechanism based around the continuous double auction. Again because of the characteristics of our domain, we need to extend the standard form of this protocol by introducing a novel clearing rule based around an order book. With this modified protocol, we empirically demonstrate (with simple trading strategies) that the mechanism achieves high efficiency. In particular, despite this simplicity, the traders can still derive a profit from the market which makes our mechanism attractive since these results are a likely lower bound on their expected returns

Digitalisation and New Business Models in Energy Sector

This paper reviews digitalisation in energy sector by looking at the business models of 40 interesting new start-up energy companies from around the world. These start-ups have been facilitated by the rise of distributed generation, much of it intermittent in nature. We review Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Blockchain applications in energy sector. We discuss the rise of prosumers and small-scale renewable generation, highlighting the role of Feed-in-Tariffs (FITs), the Distribution System Platform concept and the potential for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) trading. Our aim is to help energy regulators calibrate their support new business models

Entrepreneurship by Alliance

Recent years have seen the introduction of markets and a system of private property rights in China with a view to changing the composition of production and demand and enhancing welfare. Central to the success of these reforms is the rise of entrepreneurship with its potential to set the economy on a higher growth path by supplying the products which consumers need and want, creating new employment opportunities, and introducing new and more efficient technologies of production. But to what extent can we expect to see entrepreneurs in China behaving like their counterparts in the advanced industrial economies of Western Europe, Japan, and the United States? This is the question we address in this chapter. In our view, the reform programme has, indeed, opened up new opportunities for private enterprise activity; but idiosyncrasies of the business environment are at the same time generating novel institutional arrangements in support of entrepreneurs' investments. We agree, therefore, with Herrick and Kindleberger when they assert that "Development ought not to be viewed as a monotonic, stylized path, ever onward and upward, historically established and invariably repeated" (1983, p.62).entrepreneurship;economic growth;economic development;business networking;Western economies