This paper shows that a seemingly simple assumption, regarding the time horizon of economic agents, can reconcile the puzzling long run price dynamics of exhaustible resources such as oil, gas and metals. It does so by exploring the possibility that economic agents use a rolling planning...

A rapidly rising carbon tax leads to faster extraction of fossil fuels and accelerates global warming. We analyze how general equilibrium effects operating through the international capital market affect this Green Paradox. In a two-region, two-period world with identical homothetic preferences...

This paper investigates the benefits of a merger when goods are complements and firms behave in a Cournot manner both in a theoretical model as well as in a real-world application. In a setting of two complementary duopolies a merger between two firms each producing one of the goods always...

This study explores the dynamics of monthly metal prices during the past 100 years. On the basis of a unique data set, co-movement, price cycles and long-run trends are analyzed by means of common statistical methods and the results are compared to the findings in the literature. Due to its...

This article studies the likely impact of unconventional gas developments in the U.S. on EU competitiveness. We find, first of all, little evidence for a prosperous unconventional gas development in Europe. Second, the U.S. boom has already a strong impact on both world and European energy...

This paper analyzes theoretically and empirically how upstream markets are affected by deregulation downstream. Deregulation tends to increase the level of uncertainty in the upstream market. Our theoretical analysis predicts that deregulated firms respond to this increase in uncertainty by...

One of the drivers of green consumerism are social network externalities that are associated with buying 'green' because green consumerism is fashionable, or because of reputation effects. We analyze how the strength of this social network effect impacts green consumerism, environmental...

Under standard assumptions, optimum commodity taxation (OCT) should target non-renewable resources (NRRs) in priority. NRRs should be taxed at a higher rate than otherwise-identical conventional commodities. NRR substitutes and complements should receive a particular tax treatment. When reserves...

The rapid growth of ASEAN economies, the People’s Republic of China and India (called ACI henceforth) — major drivers of Asia and the world economy—during the last five decades has caused significant strains on their scarce resources, particularly energy and contributed to serious problems...

Despite the central role of the Hotelling model within the theory of nonrenewable resources, tests of the model are rarely found. If existent, these tests tend to ignore two key features, namely market power and exploration. We therefore suggest an extension of the basic Hotelling framework to...