Kyoto,Europe?—An Economic Evaluation of the European Emission Trading Directive

To meet its obligations accepted in the Kyoto Protocol cost effectively, the European Union introduces a scheme of Greenhouse Gas Allowance Trading for its member states. This paper evaluates the cost effectiveness, ecological accuracy and dynamic incentives of this approach.The EU-emissions trading constitutes an important shift in the paradigm of environmental policy, from command and control to a market based approach. Still, the EU-system does not fully realize the economic potential of the transferable discharge permit policy. Especially, the limited scope of trading regarding geography, pollutants, sectors and activities reduces the quality of the system. Moreover, the EU-Directive is unspecific in many respects and it leaves many decisions defining the rules of the game to the individual member state. Uncertainty and heterogeneity increase transaction cost and thereby hamper the effectiveness of the system.JEL Classification: Q54, Q58, K32     

The Effectiveness of Insider Trading Regulation in Italy. Evidence from Stock-Price Run-Ups Around Announcements of Corporate Control Transactions

All developed countries and most emerging countries restrict insider trading in the belief that it may undermine investors' confidence and the integrity of financial markets.Such regulation, however, has proved to be relatively ineffective almost everywhere, as shown by the records on convictions in the last few decades and by the pervasiveness of insider trading signalled by stock-price run-ups around announcements of private information.Identifying illegal insider transactions may be difficult: the private information must be material, i.e. price-sensitive, and in some countries prosecutors have to prove the use of such information by corporate insiders. Moreover, the investigative powers of the enforcing Authority may be weak and the deterrence of criminal sanctions may be diminished by lengthy proceedings, especially when alternatives, such as administrative fines and civil actions, do not exist.To date, the Italian legal system has experienced great difficulty in detecting and punishing illegal insider trading. Since they were first enacted in 1991, the insider trading rules have led to two convictions and to a very low ratio of prosecutions to allegations of illegal trading. Moreover, leakage of private information appears to be widespread, given that news about firm-specific events seems to be incorporated in stock prices long before it is disclosed in public announcements.This paper examines the effectiveness of Italian insider trading legislation by focusing, among other things, on the stock-price run-up around announcements of corporate events. In particular, after a brief survey of earlier research on legal and illegal insider trading and on the most important weaknesses in the Italian legal framework, standard event-study methodology is used to analyse stock-price run-ups around 29 announcements of corporate control transactions in the period 1998–2000. Indicators of the leakage of non-public material information are then constructed, showing that securities prices follow similar patterns regardless of whether insider trading is likely to have occurred. This evidence raises questions as to the efficacy of Italian insider trading regulation and the paper concludes with some suggestions as to how it could be improved.     

Criminal Behavior: A Real Option Approach With an Application to Restricting Illegal Insider Trading

Traditionally, criminal behavior is analyzed within an expected utility framework. This paper offers an alternative model to analyze criminal behavior based on real option models. It is shown that all criminal decisions can be analyzed as real options, in a sense that they confer the possibility but not the obligation to commit a crime in the future. The criminal option model is a richer model compared to conventional economic models of crime, because it takes into account four additional variables. As such, the conventional economic analysis of crime is a special case of criminal option models. The criminal option model is then applied to the enforcement of illegal insider trading. Based on the six value-drivers of criminal options, an active management strategy can be developed for the criminal as well as for the legislator.     

关于操纵期货、证券交易价格罪若干问题的探讨

操纵证券交易价格罪是 1997年刑法设立的新罪名 ,1999年 12月 2 5日《中华人民共和国刑法修正案》又将其改为操纵证券、期货交易价格罪。此罪的设立和适用引起了刑法理论界与司法实务界的关注与争议。对操纵证券、期货交易价格罪的立法基础、概念与构成要件、认定、处罚等若干问题的探讨 ,有助于正确认定此罪 ,准确适用刑罚。     

Cultures of high-frequency trading: mapping the landscape of algorithmic developments in contemporary financial markets

Abstract

As part of ongoing work to lay a foundation for social studies of high-frequency trading (HFT), this paper introduces the culture(s) of HFT as a sociological problem relating to knowledge and practice. HFT is often discussed as a purely technological development, where all that matters is the speed of allocating, processing and transmitting data. Indeed, the speed at which trades are executed and data transmitted is accelerating, and it is fair to say that algorithms are now the primary interacting agents operating in the financial markets. However, we contend that HFT is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon. More specifically, both individuals and collective agents – such as algorithms – might be considered cultural entities, charged with very different ways of processing information, making sense of it and turning it into knowledge and practice. This raises issues relating to situated knowledge, distributed cognition and action, the assignment of responsibility when regulating high-speed algorithms, their history, organizational structure and, perhaps more fundamentally, their representation.     

Organizational ignorance: an ethnographic study of high-frequency trading

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of strategic uses of ignorance or not-knowing in one of the most secretive industries within the financial sector. The focus of the paper is on the relation between imitation and ignorance within the organizational structure of high-frequency trading (HFT) firms. In social studies of finance (SSF) literature imitation is considered a strategic act, i.e. imitation is a term applied when traders copy the strategies of other traders. I wish to turn this relation between ignorance and imitation on its head and consider ignorance itself as a strategic unknown and investigate the kinds of imitations that might be produced from structures of not-knowing (i.e. structures intended to divide, obscure and protect knowledge). This point is illustrated through ethnographic studies and interviews within five HFT firms. The data show how a black-box structure of ignorance is replicated within the organizational setting of these firms and re-enacted by the traders. Towards the end of the paper the politics of the relationship between imitation and ignorance is discussed.     

禁止内幕交易的法律分析

关于内幕交易的行为被世界大多国家所禁止,这不仅仅是给予经济层面的考虑,法律方面的原理也是其重要的理论支撑。本文试图从公平正义、价值、秩序和效率方面对为何要禁止内幕交易加以阐述。     

Emission Trading Restrictions with Endogenous Technological Change

In this paper we use a simple climate model for endogenous environmental technical change in order to analyse the effects on equity and efficiency of placing different degrees of restrictions on trade in the market of pollution permits. The model is obtained by incorporating in Nordhaus and Yang (1996)'s RICE model a notion of induced technical change close to the one proposed in Goulder and Mathai (2000). With the help of such a model, we assess the pros and cons of introducing ceilings on emission trading. In particular, we analyse both the cost effectiveness and the distributional effects of placing restrictions of trading emissions. The analysis takes into account the role of environmental technical change that could be enhanced by emission trade limitations. However, this effect is shown to be offset by the increased abatement cost induced by the larger than optimal adoption of domestic policy measures when ceilings are made binding. Hence, our analysis provides little support for quantitative restrictions of emission trading, even when these restrictions actually have a positive impact of technical change. Even in terms of equity, ceilings find no justification within our theoretical and modelling framework. Indeed, we find that flexibility mechanisms in the presence of endogenous technical change increase equity and that the highest equity levels are achieved without ceilings, both in the short and in the long run.     

Market Darwinism vs. Market Creationism: Adaptability and Fairness in the Design of Greenhouse Gas Trading Mechanisms

International rule-making and compliance routines with respect to the Kyoto Protocol are evolving rapidly. This paper examines potential designs of emissions-trading programs by comparing the emissions credit trading (ECT) and cap-and-trade models for achieving cost-effective reductions in atmospheric greenhouse-gas (GHG) loading in terms of their adaptability and fairness. Adaptability is a valuable attribute when markets and their governing institutions are evolving rapidly or when regulated entities do not yet have well-established and predictable compliance routines. Fairness in both procedures and outcomes is central to efforts to establish and maintain institutions of international governance. The key difference concerns the awarding of tradable emission rights, which occurs at the launch of a cap-and-trade program but following when firms reduce emissions below baselines in an ECT scheme. Implications of this difference are explored in terms of institutional adaptability and fairness during program-design stages. By not locking in emission rights at the outset, and by being amenable to incremental roll-out, ECT appears to have superior adaptive and fairness qualities during periods of rapid institutional evolution.     

Financial intermediation in the securities markets law and economics of conduct of business regulation

The economic theory explains the role performed by intermediaries in financial markets. In securities markets, in particular, intermediaries act as facilitators of the financial exchange. In this context, conduct of business regulation is justified on the basis of structural problems of asymmetric information affecting the relationship between securities professionals and the individual investor.In this paper, two major conduct of business rules are analysed in the light of the kind of market imperfections they should be intended to address: the suitability and the anti-churning rules. From a functional perspective, the analysis merges major insights of financial theory with a comparative discussion of the legal rules in both the U.S. and the European Union. Law and economics approach to the matter leads to a much broader and more economically sound interpretation of the “churning” problem. This is related to an agency-based explanation of one of the most topical puzzles under debate in financial economics: the problem of noise trading.