IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ioe/doctra/341.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Forward Trading in Exhaustible-Resource Oligopoly

Author

Listed:
  • Juan-Pablo Montero

    (Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.)

  • Matti Liski

Abstract

We analyze oligopolistic exhaustible-resource depletion when firms can trade forward contracts on deliveries, a market structure prevalent in many resource commodity markets. We find that this organization of trade has substantial implications for resource depletion. As firms’ interactions become infinitely frequent, resource stocks become fully contracted and the symmetric oligopolistic equilibrium converges to the perfectly competitive Hotelling (1931) outcome. Asymmetries in stock holdings allow firms to partially escape the procompetitive effect of contracting: a large stock provides commitment to leave a fraction of the stock uncontracted. In contrast, a small stock provides commitment to sell early, during the most profitable part of the equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan-Pablo Montero & Matti Liski, 2008. "Forward Trading in Exhaustible-Resource Oligopoly," Documentos de Trabajo 341, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    • Handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:341
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economia.uc.cl/docs/doctra/dt-341.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. Denny Ellerman & Juan-Pablo Montero, 2007. "The Efficiency and Robustness of Allowance Banking in the U.S. Acid Rain Program," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 47-72.
    2. Matti Liski & Juan‐Pablo Montero, 2011. "Market Power in an Exhaustible Resource Market: The Case of Storable Pollution Permits," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 116-144, March.
    3. Frank A. Wolak, 2007. "Quantifying the supply-side benefits from forward contracting in wholesale electricity markets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(7), pages 1179-1209.
    4. Vettas, Nikolaos & Biglaiser, Gary, 2004. "Dynamic Price Competition with Capacity Constraints and Strategic Buyers," CEPR Discussion Papers 4315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Fabra, Natalia & Toro, Juan, 2005. "Price wars and collusion in the Spanish electricity market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(3-4), pages 155-181, April.
    6. James B. Bushnell & Erin T. Mansur & Celeste Saravia, 2008. "Vertical Arrangements, Market Structure, and Competition: An Analysis of Restructured US Electricity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 237-266, March.
    7. Saloner, Garth, 1987. "Cournot duopoly with two production periods," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 183-187, June.
    8. Faruk Gul, 1987. "Noncooperative Collusion in Durable Goods Oligopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(2), pages 248-254, Summer.
    9. Marc Dudey, 1992. "Dynamic Edgeworth-Bertrand Competition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1461-1477.
    10. Gaudet, Gerard & Moreaux, Michel & Salant, Stephen W., 2002. "Private Storage of Common Property," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 280-302, March.
    11. repec:bla:jindec:v:47:y:1999:i:1:p:107-24 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    13. Salant, Stephen W, 1976. "Exhaustible Resources and Industrial Structure: A Nash-Cournot Approach to the World Oil Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(5), pages 1079-1093, October.
    14. Mahenc, P. & Salanie, F., 2004. "Softening competition through forward trading," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 282-293, June.
    15. Ellerman,A. Denny & Joskow,Paul L. & Schmalensee,Richard & Montero,Juan-Pablo & Bailey,Elizabeth M., 2005. "Markets for Clean Air," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521023894, September.
      • Ellerman,A. Denny & Joskow,Paul L. & Schmalensee,Richard & Montero,Juan-Pablo & Bailey,Elizabeth M., 2000. "Markets for Clean Air," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521660839.
    16. Ilya Segal, 1999. "Contracting with Externalities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 337-388.
    17. Liski, Matti & Montero, Juan-Pablo, 2006. "Forward trading and collusion in oligopoly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 212-230, November.
    18. Andrew Sweeting, 2007. "Market Power In The England And Wales Wholesale Electricity Market 1995-2000," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 654-685, April.
    19. Richard Green, 1999. "The Electricity Contract Market in England and Wales," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 107-124, March.
    20. Gérard Gaudet, 2007. "Natural resource economics under the rule of Hotelling," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1033-1059, November.
    21. Salo, Seppo & Tahvonen, Olli, 2001. "Oligopoly equilibria in nonrenewable resource markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 671-702, May.
    22. Polasky, Stephen, 1992. "Do oil producers act as 'Oil'igopolists?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 216-247, November.
    23. Tracy R. Lewis & Richard Schmalensee, 1980. "On Oligopolistic Markets for Nonrenewable Natural Resources," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 475-491.
    24. Kahn, Charles M, 1986. "The Durable Goods Monopolist and Consistency with Increasing Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(2), pages 275-294, March.
    25. Blaise Allaz & Jean-Luc Vila, 1993. "Cournot Competition, Forward Markets and Efficiency," Post-Print hal-00511806, HAL.
    26. Jeffrey A. Krautkraemer, 1998. "Nonrenewable Resource Scarcity," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 2065-2107, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dressler, Luisa, 2016. "Support schemes for renewable electricity in the European Union: Producer strategies and competition," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 186-196.
    2. Pablo Serra, 2024. "The Auction of Contracts by Consumer Groups and the Effect on Market Power," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 64(3), pages 341-359, May.
    3. Bocar Samba BA, 2017. "Recycling of a Primary Resource and Market Power: The Alcoa Case," Working Papers 2017.27, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    4. Benchekroun, Hassan & van der Meijden, Gerard & Withagen, Cees, 2019. "An oligopoly-fringe non-renewable resource game in the presence of a renewable substitute," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-20.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matti Liski & Juan‐Pablo Montero, 2011. "Market Power in an Exhaustible Resource Market: The Case of Storable Pollution Permits," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 116-144, March.
    2. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2017. "Electricity market mergers with endogenous forward contracting," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 269-310, June.
    3. van Eijkel, Remco & Kuper, Gerard H. & Moraga-González, José L., 2016. "Do firms sell forward for strategic reasons? An application to the wholesale market for natural gas," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-35.
    4. Berk, Istemi, 2015. "Two-Period Resource Duopoly with Endogenous Intertemporal Capacity Constraints," EWI Working Papers 2014-13, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    5. Gérard Gaudet, 2007. "Natural resource economics under the rule of Hotelling," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1033-1059, November.
    6. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2018. "Analyzing the Impact of Electricity Market Structure Changes and Mergers: The Importance of Forward Commitments," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(1), pages 101-137, February.
    7. Fabra, Natalia & de Frutos, Maria-Angeles, 2008. "On the Impact of Forward Contract Obligations in Multi-Unit Auctions," CEPR Discussion Papers 6756, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Dressler, Luisa, 2016. "Support schemes for renewable electricity in the European Union: Producer strategies and competition," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 186-196.
    9. James Bushnell, 2007. "Oligopoly equilibria in electricity contract markets," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 225-245, December.
    10. de Frutos, María-Ángeles & Fabra, Natalia, 2012. "How to allocate forward contracts: The case of electricity markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 451-469.
    11. Gerlagh, Reyer & Liski, Matti, 2011. "Strategic resource dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 699-727, March.
    12. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew & Silveira, Douglas, 2023. "Screening for collusion in wholesale electricity markets: A literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    13. Baldursson , Fridrik M. & von der Fehr, Nils-Henrik, 2007. "Vertical Integration and Long-Term Contracts in Risky Markets," Memorandum 01/2007, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    14. Holmberg, Pär & Willems, Bert, 2015. "Relaxing competition through speculation: Committing to a negative supply slope," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 236-266.
    15. David P. Brown & Andrew Eckert, 2022. "Pricing Patterns in Wholesale Electricity Markets: Unilateral Market Power or Coordinated Behavior?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 168-216, March.
    16. Robert A. Ritz, 2014. "On Welfare Losses Due to Imperfect Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 167-190, March.
    17. Serra, Pablo, 2013. "Contract market power and its impact on the efficiency of the electricity sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 653-662.
    18. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David, 2010. "The supply function equilibrium and its policy implications for wholesale electricity auctions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 209-226, December.
    19. James B. Bushnell & Erin T. Mansur & Celeste Saravia, 2008. "Vertical Arrangements, Market Structure, and Competition: An Analysis of Restructured US Electricity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 237-266, March.
    20. Guy Meunier, 2011. "Imperfect Competition and Long-term Contracts in Electricity Markets: Some Lessons from Theoretical Models," Chapters, in: Jean-Michel Glachant & Dominique Finon & Adrien de Hauteclocque (ed.), Competition, Contracts and Electricity Markets, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Forward trading; exhaustible resources; oligopoly pricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • Q30 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:341. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jaime Casassus (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iepuccl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.