Four Essays in Natural Resource Economics and Carbon Markets Finance.

摘要

This thesis is composed of four (4) essays in natural resource economics and carbon finance.;In the first paper, entitled "Farsightedness in a Coalitional Great Fish War", we explore the implications of the farsightedness assumption on the conjectures of players in a coalitional Great Fish War model with symmetric players, derived from the seminal model of Levhari and Mirman (1980). The farsightedness assumption states that a deviation by one player can be followed by other deviations. For values of the biological parameter and the discount factor more plausible than the ones used in the current literature, the farsightedness assumption predicts a wide scope for cooperation in non trivial coalitions, sustained by credible threats of successive deviations that ruin the shortsighted payoff of any prospective deviator.;In the second essay, we set out to push the previous analyses a step forward by considering asymmetric players in their discount factors. We derive analytically the equilibrium payoffs of this coalitional game with asymmetrical players. We then proceed to the computation of Nash and farsighted stable coalitions for the partial coordination scheme, in the case where players are divided into two groups (high and low discount factors). We find that, when players have different discount factors, it is no longer true that the grand coalition is always profitable. We show that, however, the potential for large coalitions remains under farsightedness, and that heterogeneous coalitions can form.;The third essay is a review of one of the project-based flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM, originally motivated by the objective of technology transfers to developing countries, increases the entitlements to greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution of the Kyoto Protocol developed signatories. An overview of the carbon markets is provided, featuring the leading role of the European domestic car- bon market and the dominant position of the CDM among the project-based mechanisms. It is followed by an exposition of the incentives for supply and demand of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) that also accounts for their geographical distribution. The involved regulatory process to safeguard the environmental integrity of the mechanism is then described. The outlook points to a sizeable reduction of the CDM business and important shifts in the geographical distribution of the supply of CDM credits.;In the fourth essay, we model the dynamics of investments in a unilateral, one revenue stream CDM project with the real options method, taking into account the irreversibility and ongoing uncertainty pertaining to the process. The model is a modified version of the Majd and Pindyck (1987) model that allows for a finite horizon of the operating period. We assume that the risks pertaining to the registration period while construction may start expose the project to a catastrophic failure of its carbon revenues. For the solution, a numerical method is implemented with calibrated parameter values. The analyses show that the main threat to the CDM market is the volatility of carbon prices.