Determining Consumers’ Discount Rates With Field Studies Because utility/profits, state transitions and discount rates are confounded in dynamic models, discount rates are typically fixed to estimate the other two factors. Yet these rate choices, if misspecified, generate poor forecasts and policy prescriptions. Using a field study wherein cellphone users transitioned from a linear to three-par...

We study the design of pricing schemes for a group of consumers with smart meters (e.g., in a Greenfield area) who are connected through a gateway to a traditional electricity greed with a progressive tariff. Because the progressive tariff cannot take into account the time aspect of electricity demands, we apply it to consumers in both an individual and a group basis over a shorter time period,...

This paper aims at defining a dynamic and flexible tariff structure for a distribution company that protects the retail consumers against the excessive fluctuations of the wholesales market prices. We propose a two-stage pricing scheme that sets in a first-stage a time-of-use tariff that is corrected later by a dynamic component once the real-time demand has been observed. A personalized tariff...

Trade has become the main mode of transport for many invasive species including diseases and agricultural pests. Most species are brought to their new homes unintentionally, which constitute a market failure rooted in international trade. Unless it is practical to drive invasion risk to zero, the external costs may justify a tariff. In this paper we analyze the political process likely to gover...

Effective sharing mechanisms of joint costs among beneficiaries of a project are a fundamental requirement for the sustainability of the project. Projects that are heterogeneous both in terms of the landscape of the area under development or the participants (users) lead to a more complicated set of allocation mechanisms than homogeneous projects. The analysis presented in this paper uses coope...

As the trend in electricity markets is strongly towards deregulation, new players, new rules and new behaviors will continue to emerge. Sellers will range from the traditional utility to the opportunistic broker, and endbuyers will have more possibilities to shop to get the best deal for their different energy needs. If a coalition of buyers can be worth, then it will be constituted. One of the...

We study optimal nonuniform pricing in a setting where a customer's demand at the start of a billing period contains a random variable whose realization becomes known by the end of the billing period. In this context, an optional calling plan is a tariff which the consumer must select based on his/her expectations about the random variable, whereas, under a tapered tariff, the consumer's choice...

This paper analyzes the relative significance of regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in Asia-Pacific. The economy-wide impacts of tariff removals and reductions in non-tariff measures (NTMs) are estimated by using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of global trade. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are shown to c...

The regulator of a natural monopoly that sets a two-part tariff and whose marginal cost is stochastic will generally want the price to vary less than marginal cost when the lump-sum charge in the tariff is fixed. A trade-off exists between efficient pricing and an optimal allocation of risk. Pricing at marginal cost is only optimal when the consumer’s marginal utility is independent of the pric...