This thesis first develops a range of wholesale water market design options, based on an optimisation approach to market-clearing, as in electricity markets, focusing on the extent to which uncertainty is accounted for in bidding, market-clearing and contract formation. We conclude that the most promising option is bidding for, and trading, a combination of fixed and proportionally scaled contract volumes, which are based on optimised outputs. Other options include those which are based on a post-clearing fit (e.g. regression) to the natural optimised outputs, or constraining the optimisation such that cleared allocations are in the contractual form required by participants. Alternatively, participants could rely on financial markets to trade instruments, but informed by a centralised market-clearing simulation. We then describe a computational modelling system, using Stochastic Constructive Dynamic Programming (CDDP), and use it to assess the importance of modelling uncertainty, and correlations, in reservoir optimisation and/or market-clearing, under a wide range of physical and economic assumptions, with or without a market. We discuss a number of bases of comparison, but focus on the benefit gain achieved as a proportion of the perfectly competitive market value (price times quantity), calculated using the market clearing price from Markov Chain optimisation. With inflow and demand completely out of phase, high inflow seasonality and volatility, and a constant elasticity of -0.5, the greatest contribution of stochastic (Markov) optimisation, as a proportion of market value was 29%, when storage capacity was only 25% of mean monthly inflow, and with effectively unlimited release capacity. This proportional gain fell only slowly for higher storage capacities, but nearly halved for lower release capacities, around the mean monthly inflow, mainly because highly constrained systems produce high prices, and hence raise market value. The highest absolute gain was actually when release capacity was only 75% of mean monthly inflow. On average, over a storage capacity range from 2% to 1200%, and release capacity range from 100% to 400%, times the mean monthly inflow, the gains from using Markov Chain and Stochastic Independent optimisation, rather than deterministic optimisation, were 18% and 13% of market value, respectively. As expected, the gains from stochastic optimisation rose rapidly for lower elasticities, and when vertical steps were added to the demand curve. But they became nearly negligible when (the absolute value of) elasticity rose to 0.75 and beyond, inflow was in-phase with demand, or the range of either seasonal variation or intra-month variability reduced to ±50% of the mean monthly inflow. Still, our results indicate that there are a wide range of reservoir and economic systems where accounting for uncertainty directly in the water allocation process could result in significant gains, whether in a centrally controlled or market context. Price and price risk, which affect individual participants, were significantly more sensitive. Our hope is that this work helps inform parties who are considering enhancing their water allocation practices with improved stochastic optimisation, and potentially market based mechanisms.

abstract: I study the design of two different institutions to evaluate the welfare implications of counterfactual policies. In particular, I analyze (i) the problem of assigning students to colleges (majors) in a centralized admission system; and (ii) an auction where the seller can use securities to determine winner’s payment, and bidders suffer negative externalities. In the former, I provide a novel methodology to evaluate counterfactual policies when the admission mechanism is manipulable. In the latter, I determine which instrument yields the highest expected revenue from the class of instruments that combines cash and equity payments. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2017

Thesis advisor: Utku Unver / My doctoral research focuses on the matching theory and its market design application. Specifically, I work on matching with property rights, where property rights not only mean the ownership, but also refer to the ability to determine how the good is used. In the matching with property rights model, an agent who owns a resource can claim how her resource is offered, depending on what she gets from the system. For example, in a housing exchange for vacation, an agent who gets a house with a car will offer her house also with a car. However, if she is assigned only a house without a car, she might refuse to offer a car. This restriction can be thought as a matching with externality, as someone's consuming my resource in certain way affects my utility. With property rights present, it is not clear how we can achieve a desirable outcome while satisfying the rights. I am currently pursuing two main lines of research in this topic that constitute the two chapters dissertation. In Matching with Property Rights: an Application to a Parking Space Assignment Problem, I introduce parking in urban areas as a matching problem. First, I model the street-parking market as a strategic game and show that the set of Nash equilibrium outcomes is equivalent to the set of stable allocations. However, it is not reasonable to expect drivers to reach a Nash equilibrium in the decentralized system due to lack of information and coordination failure. Therefore, I suggest a centralized mechanism that would enable a parking authority to assign available spaces to drivers in a stable way. The model incorporates resident parking spaces, such that visitors could access vacant resident spaces. To use the resident parking spaces, the system needs to protect exclusive property rights over their parking spaces. I show that, however, there is no mechanism that is stable and protects residents' rights. To resolve this issue, I introduce a new concept, a claim contract, and suggest a mechanism that protects property rights, is strategy proof for the drivers, and approximates a stable matching. Besides its market-design focus, this paper handles both priority-based and property right-based assignment, which considered separately in the matching theory literature. In Housing Market with Contracts, I study matching with property rights problem in the housing market framework. To introduce property rights in housing market, I assume the house can be offered in two contractual terms. Property rights requires that when an agent gets a house in a certain term, her house should also be offered as the same term. Moreover, when every agent owns a house, property rights reduces to an equal-term matching. After defining efficiency and core in equal-term domain, I show that, in a housing market with contracts problem, core may be empty. However, there always exists an efficient, individually rational, and equal-term matching in every housing market with contracts problem. Then I present a mechanism that always produces an efficient, individually rational, and equal-term matching. This is the first attempt to model a matching with contract in a exchange economy. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Spain’s rapid implementation of renewable energy has been described as a success but thegovernmental cost associated to this rapid implementation has grown significantly. The purposeof this report is to investigate Spain’s electricity market, its current situation and present it, usingthe Swedish system as a reference.The report commences with a presentation of the Spanish and the Swedish electricity markets,followed by a chapter where they are compared. The renewable electricity production and theassociated development during the last decade is one focus of the comparison. The other focus ishow the costs of the subsidy systems have evolved and how they are connected to the differentenergy sources. Two sources, wind and solar, receives a higher interest than the others.Wind power shows a strong development in electricity production and contributes to asignificant part of the Spanish electricity mix. The costs of subsidies connected to the windpower reflect the produced electricity. Wind power in Sweden has had a rapid development overthe last two years and the subsidies costs are aligned with the electricity production through theuse of a quota system.There are great differences between the two countries regarding solar power. Sweden has hardlyany, while Spain has a noticeable contribution of electricity from solar power to its electricitymix. Solar power has an even more noticeable share in the Spanish subsidy system. The highsubsidies to solar power, which have not followed the reduced investment costs of equipment inrecent years, have led to a high degree of participation which has led to soaring costs for thesystem. Spain’s subsidy system is based on fixed earnings and variable costs and in combinationwith higher than expected costs, an annual deficit between the earnings and cost has been createdfor the government. This yearly deficit has increased and the Spanish government is now in debtto the five largest energy suppliers. The Swedish subsidy system carries its own costs and theSwedish government does not have a financial risk associated with the system.This study shows that the Spanish subsidy system has been too generous towards solar powerwhich is a large part, but not the only one, to the country’s huge deficit and debt. Sweden, withits quota system constructed without fixed earnings, does not risk creating a debt similar toSpain’s. Spain’s large part of wind power and how the volatile power is regulated could be ofinterest for Sweden which aims to increase its share of wind power in the future. This study findthe answer to how Spain copes with its high share of intermittent power production in that itaccepts a lower efficiency in its gas turbines in order to regulate the power output. Sweden, acountry without a large share of gas in its electricity mix, but with a large share of hydro power,uses its hydro capacity to regulate volatility in electricity system. Prior studies have already beenmade in this area with the result that 30 TWh of electricity from wind power, more thanSweden’s goal for 2020 regarding wind power, would be possible to regulate with the presentsystem each year.

Thesis advisor: Uzi Segal / This collection of papers examines applications of microeconomic theory to practical problems. More specifically, I identify frictions between theoretical results and agent behavior. I seek to resolve these tensions by either proposing mechanisms to more closely capture the theoretical environment of interest or extending the model to more closely approximate the world as individuals perceive it. In the first chapter, "Compensation without Distortion,'' I propose a new mechanism for compensating subjects in preference elicitation experiments. The motivation for this tool is the theoretical problem of incentive compatibility in decision experiments. A hallmark of experimental economics is the connection between a subject's payment with their actions or decisions, however previous literature has highlighted shortcomings in this link between compensation and methods currently used to elicit beliefs. Specifically, compensating individuals based on choices they make increases reliability, however these payments can themselves distort subjects' preferences, limiting the resulting data's usefulness. I reexamine the source of the underlying theoretical tension, and propose using a stochastic termination mechanism called the "random stopping procedure'' (RSP). I show that the RSP is theoretically able to structurally avoid preference distortions induced by the current state of the art protocols. Changing the underlying context subjects answer questions—by resolving payoff uncertainty immediately after every decision is made—the assumed impossibility of asking multiple questions without creating preference distortions is theoretically resolved. To test this prediction, I conduct an experiment explicitly designed to test the accuracy of data gathered by the RSP against the current best practice for measuring subject preferences. Results show that RSP-elicited preferences more closely match a control group's responses than the alternative. In the second chapter, "School Choice and Class Size Externalities,'' I revisit the many-to-one matching problem of school choice. I focus on the importance of problem definition, and argue that the "standard'' school choice model is insufficiently sensitive to relevant characteristics of student preferences. Motivated by the observation that students care about both the school they attend, and how over- or under-crowded the school is, I extend the problem definition to allow students to report preferences over both schools and cohort sizes. (Cohort size is intended as a generalization of school crowding, relative resources, or other similar school characteristics.) I show that, if students do have preferences over schools and cohort sizes, current mechanisms lose many of their advantageous properties, and are no longer stable, fair, nor non-wasteful. Moreover, I show that current mechanisms no longer necessarily incentivize students to truthfully report their preferences over school orderings. Motivated by the observation that students care about both the school they attend, and how over- or under-crowded the school is, in "School Choice and Class Size Externalities'' I extend the standard school choice problem to incorporate both of these elements. I show that, if students do have preferences over schools and cohort sizes, current mechanisms are no longer stable, fair, nor non-wasteful. In response, I construct an alternative matching mechanism, called the deferred acceptance with voluntary withdrawals (DAwVW) mechanism, which improves on the underlying (unobserved) manipulability of "standard" mechanisms. The DAwVW mechanism is deterministic and terminates, more closely satisfies core desirable matching properties, and can yield substantial efficiency gains compared to mechanisms that do not consider class size. In the third chapter, I provide an overview of the history of decision experiments in economics, describe several of the underlying tensions that motivate my other projects, and identify alternative potential solutions that have been proposed by others to these problems. In this project, I add context to the larger field of experimental economics in which my research is situated. In addition to the mechanisms discussed by prior literature reviews, I incorporate and discuss recently developed payment and elicitation methods, and identify these new approaches' advantages and drawbacks. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

No description available.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第24933号 / 情博第844号 / 新制||情||141(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科社会情報学専攻 / (主査)教授 伊藤 孝行, 教授 鹿島 久嗣, 教授 岡部 寿男, 阿部 正幸(NTT社会情報研究所) / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DGAM

Ce travail s'inscrit dans l'analyse économique des architectures de marché électrique. Il s'appuie sur un cadre d'analyse modulaire permettant de séparer les problèmes du market design en modules distincts. Il se concentre sur le design du temps réel ayant un rôle clé pour l'électricité. Un modèle d'équilibre à deux étapes a permis d'analyser les deux variantes de design du temps réel : le marché et le mécanisme (utilisant de pénalités). Les simulations numériques ont montré que le design du temps réel n'est pas neutre vis-à-vis de la séquence des marchés d'énergie et de la dynamique concurrentielle. Les designs s'écartant du « marché » provoquent des distorsions, des inefficacités et peuvent créer des barrières à l'entrée. L'ampleur des distorsions est déterminée par la fermeture des marchés forward (gate closure). Cette modélisation a permis aussi de montrer le rôle fondamental de l'intégration entre deux zones en temps réel et l'importance d'une harmonisation adéquate des designs.

Les défis auxquels les systèmes électriques font face actuellement (intégration massive des énergies renouvelables, développement de la production distribuée, réduction des émissions CO2, etc.) donnent lieu à une intuition partagée sur la croissance des besoins en stockage d’électricité. Néanmoins, les investissements en stockage engagés par des acteurs individuels restent à ce jour très faibles, sauf pour la technologie de stockage par pompage-turbinage. Ceci s’explique potentiellement par le fait que l’usage du stockage par un seul acteur ne permet que rarement de recouvrir le coût d’investissement du stockage. En tant qu’actif multifonctionnel, le stockage est capable de fournir de nombreux services à différents acteurs. La façon dont le stockage est utilisé devrait être adaptée afin de permettre une mutualisation du coût d’investissement et des bénéfices parmi différents acteurs dans le paysage dérégulé des systèmes électriques en Europe.La thèse a permis d’étudier les mécanismes efficaces permettant 1) aux acteurs régulés et dérégulés de partager l’utilisation d’une unité du stockage, et 2) à une coordination efficace des utilisations décentralisées du stockage. A cet effet, nous proposons un design de marché qui permet d’agréger les valeurs du stockage en deux dimensions.Premièrement, des valeurs peuvent être agrégées sur plusieurs horizons temporels. Les acteurs peuvent avoir intérêt à décider l’utilisation du stockage à différents moments avant la livraison en temps réel. L’agrégation verticale est obtenue par la superposition des profils d’utilisation décidés à différents horizons temporels. Deuxièmement, les valeurs peuvent être agrégées parmi différents acteurs. Ceci consiste à coupler le stockage avec des marchés organisés de l’électricité. A un horizon donné, l’opérateur du stockage communique ses capacités disponibles à l’opérateur du marché, qui vaviincorporer ces capacités dans le processus de clearing de marché afin de maximiser le bien-être social.La thèse démontre qu’il est possible de faire partager une unité du stockage par des acteurs régulés et dérégulés d’une manière systématique. Des simulations montrent que l’agrégation des valeurs du stockage, de la façon proposé dans la thèse, peut conduire à une augmentation évidente de la rentabilité du stockage. Elles montrent aussi qu’après la clôture de toutes les activités commerciales à un horizon donné, il reste systématiquement des capacités du stockage non-utilisées, qui sont difficilement valorisables par les acteurs dérégulés, mais pourraient être servies par les acteurs régulés. Le mécanisme d’agrégation permet de capturer la valeur de ces capacités, tout en respectant le principe d’ « unbundling » du secteur électrique européen. / The challenges faced by the power systems nowadays (massive integration of intermittent energy sources, development of distributed generation, reduction of CO2 emissions, etc.) give rise to a widespread notion on the growing needs for electric energy storage (EES). In spite of this, little investment on EES, however, has been carried out by individual actors. An exception concerns pumped hydro storage technology, but the development of this technology is highly constrained by the existence of suitable sites in Europe. The lack of investments in EES, despite its general usefulness, is potentially due to the fact that the usage of storage by one individual actor generally could not allow him to recover the high investment costs involved. As a multi-functional asset, EES can provide numerous benefits to different actors. A potential means to promote EES may involve socialising the investment cost and benefits of EES among different actors in the deregulated power systems in Europe.This thesis studies how to create efficient mechanisms to allow 1) all the actors, both regulated and deregulated, to share the use of an EES unit, and 2) an effective coordination on the decentralized usages of storage by different actors. To this aim, we propose a market design that enables the aggregation of the values of EES along two dimensions, namely vertical and horizontal aggregation.Firstly, the values can be aggregated vertically upon several time horizons. Actors may have different needs for EES at different time horizons. The vertical aggregation is achieved by superposing utilisation profiles of EES decided at different moments in time. The compatibility of the different utilisation profiles is ensured by a coordination mechanism. Secondly, the values can also be aggregated horizontally among a large number of actors. The horizontal aggregation consists in coupling EES to the electricityivmarkets. At a given time horizon, the storage operator communicates the available capacities of EES to the market operator, who will incorporate these capacities in the market clearing process to maximise the social welfare.The thesis proves that it is possible for different actors, both regulated and deregulated, to share the use of storage in a systematic way. The simulation results show that the aggregation of values of EES, in the way proposed by the thesis, can lead to higher return on investment. The simulation also show that, after the closure of all commercial activities (at certain time horizon), there are systematically residual capacities of EES which are difficult to be valued by deregulated actors, but can be used by regulated actors. The value of these capacities can be effectively captured in the proposed aggregation mechanism, while respecting the unbundling principle of the European electricity sector.

Le système électrique européen peut être décrit par le concept de système intégré, c'est à dire un réseau interconnecté dont l'organisation est découpée par diverses frontières administratives de nature légale, technique ou marchande. Dans ce contexte, l'amélioration de la coordination de l'opération sur ces frontières internes, pour un ensemble donné d'infrastructures, doit permettre une utilisation plus optimale des ressources disponibles.L'analyse économique de ces coordinations transfrontalières et du processus d'amélioration en cours en Europe en 2012 permet d'une part de tirer les enseignements de cette expérience et d'autre part de soutenir le processus d'amélioration en contribuant à la compréhension des enjeux par les acteurs. Pour cela, l'étude propose tout d'abord une synthèse sur la gestion du système électrique qui définit l'objet d'étude. Puis, le deuxième chapitre détaille une analyse fonctionnelle des mécanismes de coordination. Cette analyse permet de faire le lien avec des aspects techniques qui conditionnent l'organisation économique. Le troisième chapitre porte sur les méthodes d'évaluation des bénéfices, des coûts et des effets redistributifs d'une évolution de la coordination. Les chapitres quatre et cinq abordent ensuite deux angles institutionnels clés. Le premier est le rôle de l'Union Européenne dans l'établissement de règles communes à l'échelle du continent. Le second est la forme institutionnelle de l'engagement des Gestionnaires de Réseau de Transport (GRT) pour le succès de ces mécanismes de coordinations. / The electricity high voltage transmission networks are interconnected over most of the continents but this is not the case of the power system organizations. Indeed, as described with the concept of integrated power system, the organization over these large networks is divided by several kinds of internal borders. In this context, the research object, the cross-border coordination of operation, is a set of coordination arrangements over internal borders between differing regulatory, technical and market designs. These arrangements can include for instance the famous market couplings, some cost-sharing agreements or common security assessments among several other solutions. The existence and improvement of the cross-border coordination of operation can be beneficial to the whole integrated power system. This statement is verified in the European case as in 2012 where several regional and continental coordination arrangements are successfully implemented.In order to benefit from the European experience and contribute to support the European improvement process, this thesis investigates the cross-border coordination of operation in the European case with four angles of study. First, a modular framework is built to describe the existing solutions and the implementation choices from a regulatory point of view. Second, the thesis analyses the tools available to assess the impact of an evolution of the cross-border coordination. Third, the role of the European Union (EU) is described as critical both for the existing arrangements and to support the improvement process. The last angle of study focuses on two dimensions of the economic modes of coordination between transmission system operators.