The Evolution Of Natural Resource Prices Under Stochastic Investment Opportunities

This book examines the economics of natural resource markets and pricing, as well as the field of natural resource economics in general. It presents the key contributions to this field of research, including the pioneering works and contemporary studies. The book highlights the basic principles and ideas underlying theoretical models of resource pricing. The models considered in the book underline the fundamental determinants of resource prices and the economic nature of rents for non-renewable and renewable resources. Besides the classical theory of exhaustible resource economics, the book includes several issues that are of high importance for global economic growth, such as the transition to alternative energy and the economics of climate change. The authors also consider the issues of commodity pricing and a resource cartel’s activity that are relevant to the world oil market. The book provides analytical solutions illustrated with numerical examples. It allows an intuitive understanding of the subject and the model inferences through graphical illustrations and an informal introduction. It, therefore, is a must-read for everybody interested in a better understanding of resource prices, resource markets, and resource economics.

The topics discussed in the Handbook on the Economics of Natural Resources are essential for those looking to understand how best to use and conserve the resources that form the foundation for human well-being. These include nonrenewable resources, mod

This title is concerned with the issue of long-term depletion of non-renewable natural resources.

Modeling the dynamics of energy markets has become a challenging task. The intensification of their financialization since 2004 had made them more complex but also more integrated with other tradable asset classes. More importantly, their large and frequent fluctuations in terms of both prices and volatility, particularly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis 2008-2009, posit difficulties for modeling and forecasting energy price behavior and are primary sources of concerns for macroeconomic stability and general economic performance.This handbook aims to advance the debate on the theories and practices of quantitative energy finance while shedding light on innovative results and technical methods applied to energy markets. Its primary focus is on the recent development and applications of mathematical and quantitative approaches for a better understanding of the stochastic processes that drive energy market movements. The handbook is designed for not only graduate students and researchers but also practitioners and policymakers.

Randall B, Lowe Piper & Marbury, L.L.R The issue of costing and pricing in the telecommunications industry has been hotly debated for the last twenty years. Indeed, we are still wrestling today over the cost of the local exchange for access by interexchange and competitive local ex change carriers, as well as for universal service funding. The U.S. telecommunications world was a simple one before the emergence of competition, comprising only AT&T and independent local exchange carriers. Costs were allocated between intrastate and interstate jurisdictions and then again, between intrastate local and toll. The Bell System then divided those costs among itself (using a process referred to as the division of revenues) and independents (using a process called settlements). Tolls subsidized local calls to keep the politi cians happy, and the firm, as a whole, covered its costs and made a fair return. State regulators, however, lacked the wherewithal to audit this process. Their con cerns centered generally on whether local rates, irrespective of costs, were at a po litically acceptable level. Although federal regulators were better able to determine the reasonableness of the process and the resulting costs, they adopted an approach of "continuous surveillance" where, like the state regulator, the appearance of rea sonableness was what mattered. With the advent of competition, this historical costing predicate had to change. The Bell System, as well as the independents, were suddenly held accountable.

In this collection of papers, originally prepared for an RFF-sponsored conference in June 1988 and subsequently revised, contributors introduce the legal and economic issues surrounding the public policy problem of natural resource damage assessment. The papers identify the origins of the concept of existence value, discuss the way in which it came to play a role in natural resource damage assessment, explain the history behind the contingent valuation method (which is being used increasingly to measure lost existence values), identify the pros and cons of this technique, review some of the law and federal rulemaking that have evolved from natural resource damage cases, and suggest a research agenda for the future. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The study of investment under uncertainty was stagnant for several decades until developments in real options revitalized the field. The topics covered in this book include the reasons behind the under-investment programme.

The investment behavior of firms is tied to the market price of the output they produce. This is especially true in natural resource industries. A central characteristic of natural resource prices is the inherent stochastic nature of the pricing process. This uncertainty affects the investment decision of firms looking to undertake capital expansion. My dissertation examines alternative stochastic processes as the data generating mechanism for commodity prices, specifically discontinuous stochastic processes. These processes are used to examine how a firm makes an irreversible investment decision when capital expansion takes time to build, utilizing the real options framework.