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Energy Reforms and Changing Prices

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China’s Energy Economy

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Energy ((LNEN,volume 13))

Abstract

This chapter is organized as follows: The first section comprises a review of the regulatory system as a whole and for certain energy types to see (1) how China has been deregulating the energy sector in order to (2) measure how far this regulatory system is from a truly market economy. The second and third sections review, historically, the reforms to energy pricing over time and across types of energy followed by changes to energy prices over time and across regions. The fourth section reconciles energy reforms and price changes primarily to show readers how energy prices have been converging over time as regulatory and price reforms have been undertaken. It should be noted that the statistical and econometric analyses of price convergence and tests for the emergence of an energy market will be discussed in detail in Chap. 9.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, Wirtshafter and Shih (1990), Wu and Li (1995), Li and Dorian (1995), Smil (1998), Thomson (1996), CIAB (1999), Andrews-Speed and Dow (2000) and Blackman and Wu (1999).

  2. 2.

    State Power Grid includes five regional grids: Northwest Grid, North Grid, Northeast Grid, Central Grid, and East Grid and also referring to Fig. 3.5 of Chap. 3.

  3. 3.

    This price is a kind of variable price based on the current quantity consumed and used to encourage or restrain electricity consumption.

  4. 4.

    Since regulated prices cannot reflect real production cost, government allows market to lead energy price rising in order to better regulate energy prices. In other words, this is the way that was used to find real energy market prices.

  5. 5.

    In China, most of electricity is generated from coal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China, People’s Republic

    Hengyun Ma

  2. Department of Economics & Finance, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Les Oxley

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  1. Hengyun Ma
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  2. Les Oxley
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Correspondence to Hengyun Ma .

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ma, H., Oxley, L. (2012). Energy Reforms and Changing Prices. In: China’s Energy Economy. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 13. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25887-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25887-9_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-25886-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-25887-9

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