Owners of exhaustible resources will respond to climate policies, and these policies have to take such responses into account. This thesis considers three separate instances in which market power and exhaustible resources interact with climate policy. Chapter 2 considers research and development (R&D) into green substitutes to oil as a climate policy instrument. Oil exporters will respond to such R&D efforts in ways which reduce the effectiveness of the policy. Making substitute technologies competitive against current oil prices is not sufficient. R&D efforts will only force higher oil supplies, aggravating short-term pollution. Eventually, the oil age will end as the substitutes become competitive against the marginal cost of producing oil. This motive encourages an R&D push to leave more oil underground. Strategic gaming between the importers and exporters may reduce both oil supply and R&D efforts. Chapter 3 considers fixed costs into opening a deposit of an exhaustible resource. Counterintuitively, a monopolist may invest too early, into too much capacity. I then apply this model to an unconventional exhaustible resource: empty space underground, in which to store captured carbon emissions. I focus on the case of storing European emissions under the North Sea. Monopolistic storage is only a concern if storage space is sufficiently abundant. In this case, the monopolist will not invest enough, to cut back the cumulative storage capacity. Duopolistic storage may involve tacit collusion. Chapter 4 considers an unconventional climate policy instrument: capital income taxes imposed on oil exporters. Such taxes can motivate conservation of polluting resources and allow oil importers to appropriate some oil wealth. These benefits come at the cost of inducing productive distortions, which diminish overall economic output.

Defining sustainable development as non-declining utility, the relationship between sustainable development and optimal growth is examined critically in Part 1. The operation of the Hartwick rule for an exhaustible resource is explored under different values of the elasticity of substitution between capital and resources. The Hartwick rule is then extended to the case of fossil fuels, where carbon dioxide emissions arise as an externality. Optimal growth paths with exhaustible resources are shown to be non-sustainable for positive pure rates of time preference or if produced capital depreciates. For linked environment-economy models where pollution stocks dissipate, the optimal steady state is characterized and feasibility conditions for the steady state derived. When resources are renewable and production leads to emissions that damage the resource, the restrictions on the feasible resource stock size in the steady state are determined. Part 2 considers the problem of measuring sustainable development, deriving 'green NNP' as a transformation of the Hamiltonian function for an optimal control problem. Two problems in accounting for exhaustible resources are developed: resource discoveries and heterogeneous resource deposits. The key issue of the treatment of pollution and pollution abatement in green national accounts is explored through a series of six models: flow pollutants, stock pollutants, impairment of pollution dissipation, fossil fuels and carbon dioxide, living resources and acid rain, and household defensive expenditures. The models of flow accounts are extended to green wealth accounting, where it is shown that stocks of pollution can be treated as liabilities in the national balance sheet. Empirical measures of sustainable development are presented in Part 3, with a discussion of the policy implications of green national accounting. Estimates of the value of pollution and 'genuine' savings rates are presented for the UK and selected European countries. The genuine savings analysis is extended to resource depletion and carbon emission damages for over 50 developing countries, revealing significant dissaving in Subsaharan Africa.

Exhaustible resource rents are an important taxable base in many countries, with revenue sharing often part of the scheme. In some cases large shares are retained for the central government. Generally, the discussions of exhaustible resource taxation consider assignment of resource rent tax base and revenue sharing from the limited perspectives of efficiency and stability. Tax assignment and sharing arrangements are assumed to have a neutral effect on investment of resource rents in long-lived public goods. We attempt to demonstrate that this may not be the case, specifically looking at the question of whether rent assignment is neutral to effects on investment of rents in long-lived public goods, a normative policy objective, and under what conditions it occurs. We test the theoretical propositions with data from the Russian Federation to derive empirical results. The results from the Russian Federation point toward an important dimension of rent tax assignment in a federation. They results show that ceteris paribus, higher share of rent for the federation may lead to lower investment in long-lived public goods and may be constrained by stability. Another argument has been made for reconsidering rent tax assignment using assertive ethnic identity as a manifestation strong ownership claims. Communities with strongly valued identities value ownership over land and exhaustible resource endowments in their areas. This may be the case especially if ethnic identity is important to the resource owning community. The empirical results show that a decrease in the regional share of rent resulted in a fall in investments in the republics and regions with strong ethnic identity. Republics among the producing regions have historical claims to a distinct identity and may have a preference for preserving their identity. This preference is manifested as higher levels of rent investment. Following this line of argument, it can be concluded that rent assignment, through rent tax or revenue assignment, should favor producing regions within the range of stability in a federation, if the objective is achieving higher investment in long-lived public goods.

In the study of sets of points certain sets are found to be negligible, especially when applied to the theory of functions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss three of these "negligible" types, namely, exhaustible sets, denumerable sets, and sets of Lebesgue measure zero. We will present a complete existential theory in q-space for the three set properties mentioned above, followed by a more restricted discussion in the linear continuum by use of interval properties.

Exhaustible resource rents are an important taxable base in many countries, with revenue sharing often part of the scheme. In some cases large shares are retained for the central government. Generally, the discussions of exhaustible resource taxation consider assignment of resource rent tax base and revenue sharing from the limited perspectives of efficiency and stability. Tax assignment and sharing arrangements are assumed to have a neutral effect on investment of resource rents in long-lived public goods. We attempt to demonstrate that this may not be the case, specifically looking at the question of whether rent assignment is neutral to effects on investment of rents in long-lived public goods, a normative policy objective, and under what conditions it occurs. We test the theoretical propositions with data from the Russian Federation to derive empirical results. The results from the Russian Federation point toward an important dimension of rent tax assignment in a federation. They results show that ceteris paribus, higher share of rent for the federation may lead to lower investment in long-lived public goods and may be constrained by stability. Another argument has been made for reconsidering rent tax assignment using assertive ethnic identity as a manifestation strong ownership claims. Communities with strongly valued identities value ownership over land and exhaustible resource endowments in their areas. This may be the case especially if ethnic identity is important to the resource owning community. The empirical results show that a decrease in the regional share of rent resulted in a fall in investments in the republics and regions with strong ethnic identity. Republics among the producing regions have historical claims to a distinct identity and may have a preference for preserving their identity. This preference is manifested as higher levels of rent investment. Following this line of argument, it can be concluded that rent assignment, through rent tax or revenue assignment, should favor producing regions within the range of stability in a federation, if the objective is achieving higher investment in long-lived public goods.

Dans une perspective mondiale de décarbonisation de la production énergétique et de croissance de la production d’électricité d’origine nucléaire, la disponibilité des ressources d’uranium est un enjeu majeur. Les technologies futures qui permettront aux réacteurs nucléaires de s’affranchir de l’uranium naturel mettront du temps à être pleinement déployées. Nous analysons donc les conditions de disponibilité de l’uranium au XXIe siècle. Les deux premières sont liées au coût de production : ce sont l’accessibilité technique et l’intérêt économique. Nous les étudions en modélisant les ressources ultimes d’uranium (quantités découvertes et non découvertes) et leurs coûts. Cette méthode s’appuie sur un découpage régional du monde, la connaissance actuelle des gisements et un filtre économique. Elle permet d’établir une courbe d’offre de long terme où les quantités d’uranium techniquement accessibles sont fonction du coût de production. Les principales incertitudes de ces estimations ont été identifiées et l’on montre qu’en l’absence de découpage régional, les ressources ultimes sont sous-estimées. Les autres conditions de disponibilité de l’uranium prises en compte sont liées aux dynamiques de marché que crée la confrontation de l’offre et de la demande. Nous les étudions en les modélisant sous la forme de contraintes dynamiques dans un modèle de marché en équilibre partiel. Ce modèle est déterministe et les acteurs y sont représentés par région. Il permet de tenir compte, par exemple, de la corrélation à court terme entre le prix et les dépenses d’exploration, qui fait l’objet d’une étude économétrique spécifique. À plus long terme, les contraintes modélisées incluent l’anticipation de la demande par les consommateurs et de la raréfaction progressive des ressources ultimes les moins chères. Par une série de simulations prospectives, nous montrons que le rythme de croissance de la demande d’uranium au XXIe siècle et son anticipation ont une forte influence sur la hausse du prix à long terme. À l’inverse, les incertitudes liées à l’estimation des ressources ultimes ont une influence limitée. Nous soulignons également l’évolution inégale du poids des différentes régions dans la production mondiale. Enfin, certaines variations de l’offre (arrêt de la production d’une région par exemple) ou de la demande (croissance irrégulière ou introduction de nouvelles technologies) ont également une influence significative sur l’évolution du prix à long terme ou sa cyclicité. / From a global perspective, a low-carbon path to development driven by a growth of nuclear power production raises issues about the availability of uranium resources. Future technologies allowing nuclear reactors to overcome the need for natural uranium will take time to fully deploy. To address these issues, we analyze the conditions of availability of uranium in the 21st century.The first two conditions are technical accessibility and economic interest, both related to the cost of production. We study them using a model that estimates the ultimate uranium resources (amounts of both discovered and undiscovered resources) and their costs. This model splits the world into regions and the resource estimate for each region derives from the present knowledge of the deposits and economic filtering. The output is a long-term supply curve that illustrates the quantities of uranium that are technically accessible as a function of their cost of production. We identify the main uncertainties of these estimates and we show that with no regional breakdown, the ultimate resources are underestimated.The other conditions of availability of uranium covered in our study are related to the market dynamics, i.e. they derive from the supply and demand clearing mechanism. To assess their influence, they are introduced as dynamic constraints in a partial equilibrium model. This model of the uranium market is deterministic, and market players are represented by regions. For instance, it takes into account the short-term correlation between price and exploration expenditures, which is the subject of a dedicate econometric study. In the longer term, constraints include anticipation of demand by consumers and a gradual depletion of the cheapest ultimate resources.Through a series of prospective simulations, we demonstrate the strong influence on long term-price trends of both the growth rate of demand during the 21st century and its anticipation. Conversely, the uncertainties related to the estimation of ultimate resources have limited influence. We also underline the uneven evolution of market shares between regions. Finally, particular changes in supply (production shutdown in one of the regions, for example) or in demand (irregular growth or introduction of new technology) also have a significant influence on the evolution of the long-term price or its cyclicity.

No description available.

none

This thesis consists of four essays in resource and behavioral economics. Resource Extraction, Capital Accumulation and Time Horizon The paper shows that relaxing the standard infinite horizon assumption can explain the patterns of exhaustible resource extraction and prices for the last century. An empirical test proposes a time horizon of roughly 28 years to be most likely. Model calibration yields an oil price which fits the falling price after WWII and suggests that the sharply increasing price after 1998 is due to scarcity. Optimal Forest Rotation under Climate Change    The scenario of forests growing faster over time, due to climate change, is analyzed. It is shown numerically that ignoring future changes is highly likely to be accurate in terms of harvesting and will cause insignificant profit losses. Tragedy of the Commons versus the Love of Variety    The opposing effects of overharvesting of renewable resources when property rights are missing and increased consumption variety, both due to trade, are analyzed. Trade increases welfare if the resource has strong regenerative power. If, instead, the resource regenerates slowly, then sufficient increases in the number of trade partners harms welfare and the stock may even collapse. Correcting policies may be very harsh and still improve upon laissez faire. The Distribution of Revealed Preferences under Social Pressure    Stated preferences, such as declared political opinions, are studied when individuals make the trade off between being true to their real opinions and conforming to a social norm. In orthodox societies, individuals will tend to either conform fully or ignore the social norm while individuals in liberal societies will tend to compromise between the two extremes. The model sheds light on phenomena such as polarization, alienation and hypocrisy. Furthermore, it suggests that orthodoxy cannot be maintained under pluralism.

My dissertation consists of three distinct but related chapters on Energy Economics and Finance. My first chapter is an empirical evaluation of market conduct in global crude oil markets. "Hotelling rule" states that even in competitive equilibrium, price of an "exhaustible resource" exceeds its marginal cost due to the opportunity cost of depleting the non-renewable resource. This cost is called "scarcity rent". Oil price exceeds its marginal extraction cost significantly. This can be attributed to two different sources: effect of scarcity of oil on prices or exercising market power by OPEC (collusion). In this paper, I use Porter (1983) approach considering the possibility of "scarcity rent" component involved in the gap between price and marginal extraction cost in the oil market. The novelty of my approach is to empirically estimate scarcity rent using data on cost of production of oil. Two benchmark cases, where scarcity rent is either zero (non-exhaustible resources hypothesis (Adelman 1990)) or equal to minimum price-cost margin are considered. The results show that in both cases OPEC failed to cooperate effectively and in second case, market conduct estimated is closer to Cournot behavior. In the second chapter of my dissertation, we employ a real options approach to evaluate oil and gas companies' investment decisions in an empirical setup. We develop a theoretical model to derive testable predictions. A unique measure of investment costs is obtained from energy industry data vendors. This novel dataset contains details of contract terms and pricing for offshore drilling equipment, which constitute the major share of investment costs in offshore oil field development. The investment database is combined with financial and macroeconomic data, which enables us to perform a panel data analysis of investments' response to variations in investment costs and market variables such as the slope of futures curve, firms' past earnings, cost of capital and implied oil price volatility. Our results show that the larger firms, facing less financial friction, are more forward looking while the smaller firms, who have less access to capital markets, are more dependent on their past earnings. The third chapter of my dissertation is about the effect of recent natural gas production boom on U.S. manufacturing. Natural gas production in North America has increased significantly over the past decade causing the prices to plunge during past 5 years. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of low natural gas prices on energy intensive U.S. manufacturing industries using market data. I empirically evaluate the stock market reactions of publicly traded companies in energy intensive industries to arrival of new information about the unexpected price shocks in natural gas futures markets. My results show that the stock market does not react significantly to innovations in the expected price of natural gas, proxied for by monthly changes in natural gas futures contracts with a fixed maturity date. I then split the sample into two groups based on their expenditure on natural gas as a ratio of their total production value. The stock market valuation of companies in high "natural gas intensity" industries were positively affected by unexpected downward shocks in natural gas prices and the results are significant. / text