Fuel Subsidies Versus Market Power: Is There a Countervailing Second-Best Optimum?
研究了燃料补贴导致过度消费与环境成本，而市场势力造成消费者剩余损失，两者能否相互抵消达到次优最优。基于68个发展中国家汽油市场数据，发现补贴对市场势力加价的抵消过度，政策失灵风险大于市场失灵。
Abstract Fuel subsidies distort end-use prices below cost, resulting in overconsumption and huge environmental cost. On the other hand, the mark-up over cost due to the exercise of market power results in the social loss of consumer surplus. We open a new line of inquiry into the potential for a market-based solution from these two countervailing forces: can the two offsetting distortions conceivably achieve a second- best optimum? Relying on dynamic panel techniques and gasoline market data for 68 developing countries, we uncover an excessive second-best subsidy offset to market power mark-up on the order of 4.5. Our results indicate that the potential for policy failure strongly exceeds the potential for market failure in our model, and gasoline prices across our sample may not be aligned with vigorous anti-climate change policy.