[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/apu/wpaper/2010-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Irreversible investment, uncertainty, and ambiguity: The case of bioenergy sector

Author

Listed:
  • Elodie Le Cadre
  • Caroline Orset
Abstract
We analyse the decision of an agent to invest in industrial activities characterized by two forms of uncertainty: market size uncertainty and price uncertainty. We use bioenergy industries for an application of the model. Indeed, the sector is confronted to both, an uncertainty in relation to the arrival of an activity relying on the implementation of emerging renewable energy technology (second generation biofuel process) and an uncertainty linked to the variability of the price of biomass sold. We find the neglecting market size-related uncertainty would lead to an underestimation of the role of price uncertainty on the investment. Likewise, adding a price uncertainty may increase the investment when under both uncertainties the producer over values the selling prices. We demonstrate that the investment under price uncertainty is larger than the one under market size uncertainty when the producer's prior belief on the realization of the situation with a high price is higher than certain threshold. In addition, the ambiguity aversion on the price distribution also leads the producer to under-invest. We then discuss some political instruments that could ease the ability of the producer to invest in context of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Suggested Citation

  • Elodie Le Cadre & Caroline Orset, 2010. "Irreversible investment, uncertainty, and ambiguity: The case of bioenergy sector," Working Papers 2010/03, INRA, Economie Publique.
    • Handle: RePEc:apu:wpaper:2010/03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www6.versailles-grignon.inra.fr/economie_publique/Media/fichiers/Working-Papers/Working-Papers-2010/WP_2010_03
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zengjing Chen & Larry Epstein, 2002. "Ambiguity, Risk, and Asset Returns in Continuous Time," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1403-1443, July.
    2. Engle Warnick James C. & Escobal Javier & Laszlo Sonia C., 2011. "Ambiguity Aversion and Portfolio Choice in Small-Scale Peruvian Farming," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-56, November.
    3. repec:bla:scandj:v:83:y:1981:i:2:p:277-88 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    5. Peter Klibanoff & Massimo Marinacci & Sujoy Mukerji, 2005. "A Smooth Model of Decision Making under Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1849-1892, November.
    6. Dangl, Thomas, 1999. "Investment and capacity choice under uncertain demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 415-428, September.
    7. Heath, Chip & Tversky, Amos, 1991. "Preference and Belief: Ambiguity and Competence in Choice under Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 5-28, January.
    8. Uslu, Ayla & Faaij, André P.C. & Bergman, P.C.A., 2008. "Pre-treatment technologies, and their effect on international bioenergy supply chain logistics. Techno-economic evaluation of torrefaction, fast pyrolysis and pelletisation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1206-1223.
    9. Kahn, Barbara E & Sarin, Rakesh K, 1988. "Modeling Ambiguity in Decisions under Uncertainty," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 15(2), pages 265-272, September.
    10. Andris Piebalgs, 2006. "Green paper: A European strategy for sustainable, competitive and secure energy," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 7(02), pages 8-20, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jouvet, Pierre-André & Le Cadre, Elodie & Orset, Caroline, 2012. "Irreversible investment, uncertainty, and ambiguity: The case of bioenergy sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 45-53.
    2. Christoph Bühren & Fabian Meier & Marco Pleßner, 2023. "Ambiguity aversion: bibliometric analysis and literature review of the last 60 years," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 495-525, June.
    3. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2022. "Modeling Uncertainty as Ambiguity: a Review," NBER Working Papers 29915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Chen Li, 2017. "Are the poor worse at dealing with ambiguity?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 239-268, June.
    5. Stephen G. Dimmock & Roy Kouwenberg & Peter P. Wakker, 2016. "Ambiguity Attitudes in a Large Representative Sample," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(5), pages 1363-1380, May.
    6. Barham, Bradford L. & Chavas, Jean-Paul & Fitz, Dylan & Salas, Vanessa Ríos & Schechter, Laura, 2014. "The roles of risk and ambiguity in technology adoption," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 204-218.
    7. Corgnet, Brice & Hernán-González, Roberto & Kujal, Praveen, 2020. "On booms that never bust: Ambiguity in experimental asset markets with bubbles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    8. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Peter Klibanoff & Lætitia Placido, 2015. "Experiments on Compound Risk in Relation to Simple Risk and to Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1306-1322, June.
    9. Rieger, Marc Oliver & Wang, Mei, 2012. "Can ambiguity aversion solve the equity premium puzzle? Survey evidence from international data," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 63-72.
    10. Théodora Dupont-Courtade, 2012. "Insurance demand under ambiguity and conflict for extreme risks: Evidence from a large representative survey," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12020, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    11. Raman Uppal & Tan Wang, 2003. "Model Misspecification and Underdiversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2465-2486, December.
    12. Gul, Faruk & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 2015. "Hurwicz expected utility and subjective sources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 465-488.
    13. Milos Borozan & Loreta Cannito & Barbara Luppi, 2022. "A tale of two ambiguities: A conceptual overview of findings from economics and psychology," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 6(S1), pages 11-21, July.
    14. Aurélien Baillon & Zhenxing Huang & Asli Selim & Peter P. Wakker, 2018. "Measuring Ambiguity Attitudes for All (Natural) Events," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1839-1858, September.
    15. Zheng, Shiyuan & Jiang, Changmin & Fu, Xiaowen, 2021. "Investment competition on dedicated terminals under demand ambiguity," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    16. Matteo Del Vigna, 2011. "Ambiguity made easier," Working Papers - Mathematical Economics 2011-07, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    17. Camerer, Colin & Weber, Martin, 1992. "Recent Developments in Modeling Preferences: Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 325-370, October.
    18. Treich, Nicolas, 2010. "The value of a statistical life under ambiguity aversion," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 15-26, January.
    19. Rasmusen, Eric, 2010. "Career concerns and ambiguity aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 175-177, August.
    20. Jim Engle-Warnick & Sonia Laszlo, 2017. "Learning-by-doing in an ambiguous environment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 71-94, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ambiguity; Bioenergy; Irreversible investment; Real options theory; Uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:apu:wpaper:2010/03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Régis Grateau (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/epinrfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.