China's Energy Prices: Internal Policy Contradictions Persist
Article from: OGEL 1 (2011), in China Energy Law and Policy
Introduction
(August 2010) - The unintended or undesirable consequences of China's approach to energy pricing have been the subject of analysis by many commentators, including in this column. In the past my main observations have been (1) that the discontinuity between the market-based pricing for crude oil and coal and the regulated pricing for oil products and electricity create distorted incentives for energy enterprises, and (2) that the relatively low end-user prices for energy fail to provide sufficient incentives to save energy. Whilst progress has been made in the oil ...