Depreciating Licenses
针对现有许可证设计在投资激励与配置效率间的两难，提出一种新的折旧许可证机制，能比现有设计更有效地平衡这一权衡。
Many governments assign use licenses for natural resources, such as radio spectrum, fishing rights, and mineral extraction rights, through auctions or other market-like mechanisms. License design affects resource users’ investment incentives as well as the efficiency of asset allocation. No existing license design achieves first-best outcomes on both dimensions. Long-term licenses give owners high investment incentives but impede reallocation to high-valued entrants. Short-term licenses improve allocative efficiency but discourage investment. We propose a simple new mechanism, the depreciating license, and we argue that it navigates this trade-off more effectively than existing license designs.