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Resource Agency Relationship with Privately Known Exploration and Extraction Costs

Author

Listed:
  • François Castonguay
  • Pierre Lasserre
Abstract
We analyze exploration and extraction under asymmetric information. The principal delegates the exploitation of a resource to an agent (a mining firm) who possesses private information about the cost of exploration and learns further extraction cost information once reserves have been established and constrain extraction. The principal can only commit to current period royalty contracts: one discovery-transfer menu; one extraction-royalty menu conditional on reserves discovered. Compared with the symmetric information first best, avoiding adverse selection in extraction requires the optimum mechanism to increase discoveries by the lowest cost type and possibly others. This is tempered by a countervailing effect stemming from information asymmetry in exploration which tends to reduce discoveries, especially by higher cost types. We further detail implications on the forms taken by the inefficiencies associated with asymmetric information: abandoned reserves, excessive use of low-cost exploration prospects, and inefficient levels of technological sophistication in exploration and extraction sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • François Castonguay & Pierre Lasserre, 2016. "Resource Agency Relationship with Privately Known Exploration and Extraction Costs," CIRANO Working Papers 2016s-56, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2016s-56
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    File URL: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2016s-56.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. David Martimort & Jérôme Pouyet & Francesco Ricci, 2018. "Extracting information or resource? The Hotelling rule revisited under asymmetric information," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(2), pages 311-347, June.
    2. David Martimort & Jerome Pouyet & Francesco Ricci, 2018. "Contracts for the Management of a Non-Renewable Resource under Asymmetric Information and Structural Price Breaks," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 132, pages 81-103.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nonrenewable resources; asymmetric information; endogenous stock of resource; incentive mechanisms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • L72 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Other Nonrenewable Resources
    • Q38 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy (includes OPEC Policy)

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