IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/28399.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Competition in the Market for Flexible Resources: an application to cloud computing

Author

Listed:
  • Lam, Wing Man Wynne

Abstract

This paper considers firms' incentives to invest in local and exible resources when demand is uncertain and correlated. Before demand is realized, two firms decide to invest in their local capacity. Provider(s) of exible resource observe these decisions and invest in their capacity. After demand is realized, firms buy exible resource if demand exceeds their local capacity. I find that market power of the monopolist providing exible resources distorts investment incentives, while competition mitigates them. The extent of improvement depends critically on demand correlation and the cost of capacity: under social optimum and monopoly, if the exible resource is cheap, the relationship between investment and correlation is positive, and if it is costly, the relationship becomes negative; under duopoly, the relationship is positive. The analysis also sheds light on some policy discussions in markets such as cloud computing.

Suggested Citation

  • Lam, Wing Man Wynne, 2014. "Competition in the Market for Flexible Resources: an application to cloud computing," TSE Working Papers 14-518, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
  • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:28399
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/medias/doc/wp/io/wp_tse_518.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Joskow & Jean Tirole, 2007. "Reliability and competitive electricity markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 60-84, March.
    2. Reynolds, Stanley S. & Wilson, Bart J., 2000. "Bertrand-Edgeworth Competition, Demand Uncertainty, and Asymmetric Outcomes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 122-141, May.
    3. Manu Goyal & Serguei Netessine, 2007. "Strategic Technology Choice and Capacity Investment Under Demand Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(2), pages 192-207, February.
    4. Severin Borenstein & Stephen Holland, 2005. "On the Efficiency of Competitive Electricity Markets with Time-Invariant Retail Prices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(3), pages 469-493, Autumn.
    5. Michel Benaroch & Robert J. Kauffman, 1999. "A Case for Using Real Options Pricing Analysis to Evaluate Information Technology Project Investments," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 10(1), pages 70-86, March.
    6. de Frutos, María-Ángeles & Fabra, Natalia, 2011. "Endogenous capacities and price competition: The role of demand uncertainty," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 399-411, July.
    7. Chaim FERSHTMAN & Neil GANDAL, 2012. "Migration to the Cloud Ecosystem: Ushering in a New Generation of Platform Competition," Communications & Strategies, IDATE, Com&Strat dept., vol. 1(85), pages 109-123, 1st quart.
    8. Ravi Anupindi & Li Jiang, 2008. "Capacity Investment Under Postponement Strategies, Market Competition, and Demand Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(11), pages 1876-1890, November.
    9. Ebru K. Bish & Qiong Wang, 2004. "Optimal Investment Strategies for Flexible Resources, Considering Pricing and Correlated Demands," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(6), pages 954-964, December.
    10. Crew, Michael A & Fernando, Chitru S & Kleindorfer, Paul R, 1995. "The Theory of Peak-Load Pricing: A Survey," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 215-248, November.
    11. Frederic H. Murphy & Yves Smeers, 2005. "Generation Capacity Expansion in Imperfectly Competitive Restructured Electricity Markets," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 53(4), pages 646-661, August.
    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. Lam, W., 2015. "Competiton in the Market for Flexible Resources: an application to cloud computing," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015034, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    2. Zöttl, Gregor, 2011. "On optimal scarcity prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 589-605, September.
    3. Andreas Ehrenmann & Yves Smeers, 2011. "Generation Capacity Expansion in a Risky Environment: A Stochastic Equilibrium Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1332-1346, December.
    4. Bajo-Buenestado, Raúl, 2017. "Welfare implications of capacity payments in a price-capped electricity sector: A case study of the Texas market (ERCOT)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 272-285.
    5. Bunn, Derek W. & Oliveira, Fernando S., 2016. "Dynamic capacity planning using strategic slack valuation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 253(1), pages 40-50.
    6. Gregor Zöttl, 2010. "A Framework of Peak Load Pricing with Strategic Firms," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(6), pages 1637-1649, December.
    7. Ruderer, Dominik & Zöttl, Gregor, 2018. "Transmission pricing and investment incentives," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 14-30.
    8. Ruderer, D., 2012. "The Impact of Transmission Pricing in Network Industries," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1230, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. Christian Gambardella & Michael Pahle & Wolf-Peter Schill, 2016. "Do Benefits from Dynamic Tariffing Rise? Welfare Effects of Real-Time Pricing under Carbon-Tax-Induced Variable Renewable Energy Supply," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1621, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Grimm, Veronika & Schewe, Lars & Schmidt, Martin & Zöttl, Gregor, 2017. "Uniqueness of market equilibrium on a network: A peak-load pricing approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(3), pages 971-983.
    11. Brown, David P., 2018. "Capacity payment mechanisms and investment incentives in restructured electricity markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 131-142.
    12. Meunier, Guy, 2010. "Capacity choice, technology mix and market power," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1306-1315, November.
    13. Klaus Eisenack & Mathias Mier, 2019. "Peak-load pricing with different types of dispatchability," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 105-124, December.
    14. Helm, Carsten & Mier, Mathias, 2016. "Efficient diffusion of renewable energies: A roller-coaster ride," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145893, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Liu Yang & Chi To Ng & Yaodong Ni, 2017. "Flexible capacity strategy in an asymmetric oligopoly market with competition and demand uncertainty," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 117-138, March.
    16. Grimm, Veronika & Martin, Alexander & Schmidt, Martin & Weibelzahl, Martin & Zöttl, Gregor, 2016. "Transmission and generation investment in electricity markets: The effects of market splitting and network fee regimes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 254(2), pages 493-509.
    17. Amir Fazli & Amin Sayedi & Jeffrey D. Shulman, 2018. "The Effects of Autoscaling in Cloud Computing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5149-5163, November.
    18. Filomena, Tiago Pascoal & Campos-Náñez, Enrique & Duffey, Michael Robert, 2014. "Technology selection and capacity investment under uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 232(1), pages 125-136.
    19. Andor, Mark & Voss, Achim, 2016. "Optimal renewable-energy promotion: Capacity subsidies vs. generation subsidies," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 144-158.
    20. Dong, Lingxiu & Kouvelis, Panos & Su, Ping, 2013. "Global facility network design in the presence of competition," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 228(2), pages 437-446.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    capacity investment; cloud computing; competition; demand correlation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • L8 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tse:wpaper:28399. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.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.