Attribute-based Subsidies and Market Power: an Application to Electric Vehicles

时间：2022年11月18日（周五）10:00-11:30

讲座形式：线上讲座

主持人：雷晓燕、易君健

参与老师：赵耀辉、李玲、刘国恩、张丹丹、黄炜

主讲人：Panle Jia Barwick （UW-Madison）

摘要：

Attribute-based subsidies are commonly used to promote the diffusion of energy-efficient products in industries with significant market power. We first develop a theoretical framework for optimal policy design that incorporates endogenous product attributes, (environmental) externalities, and market power. We then estimate an equilibrium model with endogenous product attributes using comprehensive data on China's vehicle market. Simulations show that relative to attribute-based subsidies, uniform subsidies favor small and environmental-friendly vehicles but exacerbate the quantity distortion from market power for high-quality products. In contrast, subsidies based on the driving range and battery capacity or vehicle weight generate a large consumer surplus by improving product quality and mitigating market power. Among commonly used policies, capacity-based subsidies induce attributes valued by consumers, mitigate market power, and lead to the largest welfare gain at a moderate loss of environmental benefit. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating product-attribute choices and market power considerations in designing attributes-based policies.

主讲人简介：

Panle Jia Barwick is the Todd E. and Elizabeth H. Warnock Distinguished Chair Professor in the Economics Department at UW-Madison and a faculty research associate at National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research interests are empirical industrial organization, the Chinese economy, and applied econometrics, with a strong interest in environmental economics. She co-founded Cornell Institute for China Economic Research (CICER) and now serves as its board member. She is an editor of Journal of Industrial Economics, an associate editor of Rand Journal of Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, and the International Journal of Industrial Organization. She also serves on the editorial board of VoxChina. Before UW-Madison, she was an assistant and associate professor in the Economics Department at MIT from 2006 to 2013, and an associate professor and professor in the Economics Department at Cornell from 2013 to 2022. She received degrees in Economics from Fudan University (B.A.), Tufts University (M.A.), and Yale University (Ph.D.).