When assigning a concession contract, the regulator faces the issue of setting the concession length. Another key issue is whether or not the concessionare should be allowed to set the timing of new investments. In this paper we investigate the impact of concession length and investment timing...

Time overruns are common in public works and are not confined to inherently complex tasks. One explanation advanced in this paper is that bidders can undergo unpredictable changes in production costs which generate an option value of waiting. By exploiting the real-option approach, we examine...

Contracts providing payments for not developing natural areas, or for removing cropland from production, generally require long-term commitments. Landowners, however, can decide to prematurely terminate the contract when the opportunity cost of complying with conservation requirements increases....

The paper analyses the timing of spontaneous environmental innovation when second-mover advantages, arising from the expectation of declining investment costs, increase the option value of waiting created by investment irreversibility and uncertainty about private payoffs. We then focus on the...

We study the competition to acquire the exclusive right to operate an infrastructure service, by comparing two different specifications for the financial proposals - "lowest price to consumers" vs "highest concession fee", and two alternative contractual arrangements: a contract which imposes...

We study the competition to operate an infrastructure service by developing a model where firms report a two-dimensional sealed bid: the price to consumers and the concession fee paid to the government. Two alternative bidding rules are considered in this paper. One rule consists of awarding the...

Ecolabel award schemes have become increasingly popular. Their rationale is to enable (concerned) consumers to identify "green" products. By so doing, ecolabelling should stimulate environmental innovation, and induce firms to reduce the supply of conventional (polluting) products. Our analysis...

Exclusive rights granted by public authorities, like concessions to develop natural resources or electromagnetic spectrum licences, often have option-like features. However, to avoid licences being unused for lengthy periods, regulators sometimes set time limits, after which the exclusive right...

This article studies the effects of tax competition on the provision of public goods under business risk and partial irreversibility of investment. As will be shown, the provision of public goods changes over time and also depends on the business cycle. In particular, under source-based...

Over the past three years Italy has witnessed a rapid growth in the photovoltaic energy market, followed by an equally sudden decline when the government decided to reduce the incentives. This sharp change in the trend of the market calls into question the achievement of Grid Parity and the...