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In a dynamic storable good market where demand changes over time, we investigate the producer's strategic incentives to hold inventories in response to the possibility of buyer stockpiling. The literature on storable goods has demonstrated that buyer stockpiling in anticipation of higher future prices harms the producer's profitability, particularly when the producer cannot commit to future prices. We show that the producer's inventories act as a strategic device to mitigate the loss from the lack of commitment. Our results provide a rationale for the producer's inventory behavior that sheds new light on the well-documented empirical evidence about inventories.

We introduce a model of strategic environmental policy where two firms compete à la Cournot in a third market in the presence of multiple pollutants. Two types of pollutants are introduced: a local and a transboundary one. The regulator can only control local pollution as transboundary pollution is regulated internationally. We illustrate that when transboundary pollution is regulated through the use of tradable emission permits instead of non-tradable ones then a new strategic effect appears which has not been identified thus far. In this case, local pollution increases further. We caution that linking permit markets across regions may be welfare detrimental. We also provide evidence from the implementation of EU ETS over the pollution of particulate matters (PM 10 and PM 2.5).