How do banks respond to increased funding uncertainty?

This paper presents a simple model of risk-averse banks that face uncertainty over funding conditions in the money market. It shows that increased funding uncertainty: (i) creates risk-based loan-deposit synergies, (ii) often causes banks' lending volumes and their profitability to decline, (iii) can explain more intense competition for retail deposits (including deposits turning into a "loss leader"), and (iv) typically dampens the rate of pass-through from changes in the central bank's policy rate to market interest rates. These results can explain some elements of commercial banks' behaviour and the reduced effectiveness of monetary policy during the 2007/9 financial crisis.loss leade

On welfare losses due to imperfect competition

Corporate managers and executive compensation in many industries place significant emphasis on measures of firm size, such as sales revenue or market share. Such objectives have an important - yet thus far unquantifed - impact on market performance. With n symmetric firms, equilibrium welfare losses are of order 1/n4, and thus vanish extremely quickly. Welfare losses are less than 5% for many empirically relevant market structures, despite significant firm asymmetry and industry concentration. They can be estimated using only basic information on market shares. These results also apply to oligopsonistic competition (e.g., for retail bank deposits) and strategic forward trading (e.g., in restructured electricity markets)

Strategic investment, multimarket interaction and competitive advantage: An application to the natural gas industry

This paper presents a game-theoretic analysis of multimarket competition with strategic capacity investments, motivated by recent developments in international natural gas markets. It studies the competitive implications of heterogeneity in firm structure arising from asset specificity. A single-market focus confers advantage even in the absence of superior value or cost. Lower costs and a sharper organizational focus are self-enforcing in generating competitive advantage. This establishes a novel connection between two of Porter's 'generic strategies'. The model speaks to competition between pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the global impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident

Strategic investment and international spillovers in natural gas markets

This paper presents a game-theoretic analysis of multimarket competition with capacity investments, applied to international gas markets. It identifies a strategic advantage of ��focused�� pipeline gas producers (e.g., Gazprom) over ��diversified�� multimarket exporters of liquefied natural gas (e.g., Qatar). Based on this, the paper examines the spillover impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident onto European gas markets, both in the short- and longer-term. It also discusses Russia��s gas export strategy, especially the 2014 deals with China. More generally, the analysis shows how a less efficient oligopolist can be more profitable, and speaks to policy discussions about ��security of supply�� in energy markets

Price Discrimination and Limits to Arbitrage in Global LNG Markets

Gas prices around the world vary widely despite being connected by international trade of LNG Some industry observers argue hat major exporters g , Qatar) have acted irrationally by failing to engage in price arbitrage. This is also difficult to reconcile with a perfectly competitive model in which price differences exist solely because of transport costs we show that a model with market power can rationalize observed price differentials and trade flows. We highlight how different features of the LNG market limit the ability and/or incentive of other players to arbitrage, and discuss the potential impact of US LNG exports

Price discrimination and limits to arbitrage: an analysis of global LNG markets

Gas prices around the world vary widely despite being connected by international trade of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Some industry observers argue that major exporters have acted irrationally by not arbitraging prices. This is also difficult to reconcile with a competitive model in which regional price differences exist solely because of transport costs. We show that a model which incorporates market power can rationalize observed prices and trade flows. We highlight how different features of the LNG market limit the ability and/or incentive of other players to engage in arbitrage, including constraints in LNG shipping. We also present some rough estimates of market power in short-term sales by Qatar (to Japan and the UK), and discuss the potential impact of US LNG exports

Optimal Altruism in Public Good Provision

We present a model of altruistically-minded-yet rational-players contributing to a public good. A key feature is the tension between altruism and "crowding-out" effects (players' efforts are strategic substitutes). We find that more altruistic behaviour can raise or reduce welfare, depending on the fine details of the environment. It is almost always optimal for a player to act more selfishly than her true preference. We discuss applications to a range of public good problems, including global climate policy. Our results highlight that it may be difficult to infer social preferences from observed behaviour

Pass-through, profits and the political economy of regulation

Government regulation, such as the pricing of externalities, often raises the unit costs of regulated firms, and its impact on their profits is important to its political economy. We introduce a reduced-form model (“GLM”) that nests existing models of imperfect competition under weaker assumptions. We show how a firm's cost passthrough is a sufficient statistic for the profit impact of regulation. We apply the GLM to carbon pricing for US airlines. We find large inter-firm heterogeneity in pass-through, even for a uniform cost shock. The GLM allows us to sidestep estimation of a consumer demand system, firm markups and conduct parameters. We derive the second-best emissions tax including lobbying a government “for sale”

Capacity mechanisms and the technology mix in competitive electricity markets

Capacity mechanisms are increasingly used in electricity market design around the world yet their role remains hotly debated. In this paper, we introduce a new benchmark model of a capacity mechanism in a competitive electricity market with many different generation technologies. We consider two policy instruments, a wholesale price cap and a capacity payment, and show which combinations of these instruments induce socially-optimal investment by the market. Changing the price cap or capacity payment affects investment only in peak generation plant, with no equilibrium impact on baseload or mid-merit plant. We obtain a rationale for a capacity mechanism based on the internalization of a system-cost externality – even where the price cap is set at the value of lost load. In extensions, we show how increasing renewables penetration enhances the need for a capacity mechanism, and outline an optimal design of a strategic reserve with a discriminatory capacity payment