Search

China's steel industry has not yet implemented a carbon tax policy, and its benefits and impacts are still in the theoretical research stage. In addition, enterprises have an insufficient ability to respond to changes in production and sales, which seriously affects the market's stability. The government should simultaneously start from multiple perspectives, such as energy conservation, emission reduction, dynamic adjustments, and business decisions. Therefore, this research constructs a repeated dynamic game model including carbon tax policy and other mixed reduction policies, and studies the stability and related indicators of the market. The results are as follows: (1) the output adjustment policies that enterprises can implement will show an increasing trend under the single carbon tax policy. (2) The output adjustment policies that enterprises with larger output will also show an increasing trend under the mixed emission reduction policy when emission reduction targets continue to increase. (3) Smaller-output enterprises need to be more cautious in formulating their production plans, and their output adjustment policies will be restricted and affected by more factors. In summary, enterprises should comprehensively consider emission reduction policies, output adjustment policies and other enterprises' output changes, to ensure that the steel market will not fall into an imbalanced state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), as implemented, has introduced uncertainty into US ethanol producers and the supporting commodity market. First, the fixed mandate for what is mainly cornstarch-based ethanol has increased feedstock price volatility and exerts a general effect across the agricultural sector. Second, the large discrepancy between the original Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) intentions and the actual RFS2 implementation for some fuel classes has increased the investment uncertainty facing investors in biofuel production, distribution, and consumption. Here we discuss and analyze the sources of uncertainty and evaluate the effect of potential RFS2 adjustments as they influence these uncertainties. This includes the use of a flexible, production dependent mandate on corn starch ethanol. We find that a flexible mandate on cornstarch ethanol relaxed during drought could significantly reduce commodity price spikes and alleviate the decline of livestock production in cases of feedstock production shortfalls, but it would increase the risk for ethanol investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an informal and sketchy review of five topical, somewhat unrelated subjects in quantitative finance and econophysics: (i) models of price changes; (ii) linear correlations and random matrix theory; (iii) non-linear dependence copulas; (iv) high-frequency trading and market stability; and finally—but perhaps most importantly—(v) "radical complexity" that prompts a scenario-based approach to macroeconomics heavily relying on Agent-Based Models. Some open questions and future research directions are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]