Market Power in an Exhaustible Resource Market: The Case of Storable Pollution Permits
研究在可储存污染许可证市场中，拥有初始许可证的大卖家如何行使市场势力，并发现当大卖家许可证不足时，其市场势力会因承诺问题而减弱，类似耐用品垄断。
Motivated by the structure of existing pollution permit markets, we study the equilibrium path that results from allocating an initial stock of storable permits to an agent, or a group of agents, in a position to exercise market power. A large seller of permits exercises market power no differently than a large supplier of an exhaustible resource. However, whenever the large agent's endowment falls short of his efficient endowment – allocation profile that would exactly cover his emissions along the perfectly competitive path – market power is greatly mitigated by a commitment problem, much like in a durable-goods monopoly. We illustrate our theory with two applications: the US sulphur market and the international carbon market that may eventually develop beyond the Kyoto Protocol.