Suchergebnisse

The Chinese leadership has determined to assign the market a decisive role in allocating resources. To have the market to play that role, getting the energy prices right is crucial because this sends clear signals to both producers and consumers of energy. While the overall trend of China's energy pricing reform since 1984 has been moving away from the prices set by the central government in the centrally planned economy and towards a more market-oriented pricing mechanism, the pace and scale of the reform differ across energy types. This article discusses the evolution of price reforms for coal, petroleum products, natural gas, electricity and renewable power in China, and provides some analysis of these energy price reforms, in order to have the market to play a decisive role in allocating resources and help China's transition to a low-carbon economy.

ABSTRACTTo help households and firms with exploding energy costs in the aftermath of the Ukraine war, a new policy called the "energy price brake" was implemented. A unique feature of this relief measure is that it provides a transfer that increases in the consumer's contractual per‐unit price of energy. In a formal model, we show that this policy creates incentives for moral hazard of energy providers to raise per‐unit prices. Whereas this moral hazard problem increases the policy's fiscal costs, it also reinforces energy savings. Whether the policy's main beneficiaries are consumers or firms depends on the market structure.

Die Verfasser skizzieren zunächst die Bedeutung des Energiesektors im Rahmen der russischen Volkswirtschaft. Sie entwickeln im folgenden ein allgemeines Gleichgewichtsmodell des russischen Wirtschaft, das die Analyse der Auswirkungen unterschiedlicher energiepolitischer Optionen erlaubt. Untersucht werden die folgenden Szenarien: (1) Erhöhung der indirekten Steuern auf Öl und Gas und entsprechende Anhebung der Energiepreise; (2) Freigabe der einheimischen Energiepreise in Verbindung mit einer Exportsteuer in unterschiedlicher Höhe; (3) Erhöhung der indirekten Steuern auf Öl und Gas und entsprechende Anhebung der Energiepreise unter Berücksichtigung knapper Pipelineressourcen; (4) Freigabe der einheimischen Energiepreise in Verbindung mit einer Exportsteuer unter Berücksichtigung knapper Pipelineressourcen. Die Modellrechnungen zeigen, daß eine mit Exportbesteuerung kombinierte Preisliberalisierung, wie sie in Rußland 1995 durchgeführt wurde, die günstigste energiepolitische Option darstellt. (BIOst-Wpt)

Russia prices its energy commodities domestically much lower than the prices prevailing in the international market. Using a general equilibrium framework, we analyse reasons for why Russia should or should not use such a price regulation. First, being a major exporter of energy commodities and having considerable monopolistic market power, the country is able to use its supply in order to influence the international energy prices. A rational way to channel this rent to the domestic non-energy sector and to domestic consumers is through a lower, i.e., competitive, domestic price on energy than that in the world market. Second, we introduce the classic infant-industry argument with positive intertemporal spillovers through learning-by-doing linked to current production. These spillovers are likely to be relevant for manufacturing in a transition economy, which argument creates a further reason for a deviation in the pricing of energy to domestic industrial producers from the world market prices. However, an empirical consideration of these results and the estimation of the learningby-doing curve suggest that the first effect can in principle be sizeable, while the second is only marginal and that, overall, Russia is currently subsidising its domestic energy prices clearly too much. Further, we conclude that the country should not subsidise its domestic consumers more than its domestic industry, as it does in reality. We also derive the optimal domestic energy tax and show that it is modest in comparison to its current rate. The optimal pricing policy could therefore have a marked positive effect on the international supply of energy by Russia. ; Metsäalalla havaittiin perinteisen puunjalostuksen sivuvirtojen olevan merkittävin uutta arvonlisäystä synnyttävä sovellusalue metsäalan koko arvoketjussa. Tosin sellu- ja paperiteollisuuden liepeillä näyttää edelleen oleva voimakas halu tehostaa jalostusprosesseja, missä voitaisiin hyödyntää myös bioteknologioita. Kuitenkin metsäalan kohdalla erityisesti energiasovellusten tutkimus ja koulutus näyttää olevan tulevaisuuden ala. Lisäksi muilla teollisen biotekniikan aloilla on tarvetta jatkossa kehittää tutkimusta ja koulutusta. Bioteknologian perustutkintokoulutukseen sisältyy jo nykyisellään liiketoiminnan periaatteita ja kielenkäyttöä opettavia opintokokonaisuuksia; tätä toimintaa tulisi jatkaa ja mahdollisuuksien mukaan laajentaa. Akateemisen "perustutkimuksen" ja kaupallistamiseen tähtäävän "soveltavan tutkimuksen" luonne ja kannustimet ovat selkeästi erilaiset, vaikka biotekniikka-alan perustutkimus näyttää olevan monelta osin käyttötarkoituslähtöistä. Akateemisen tutkimuksen pääkannustimena ovat tieteelliset oivallukset ja tieteellinen julkaisutoiminta, ja käytännön sovellukset voivat olla hyvinkin kaukana tulevaisuudessa. Yhteiskuntamme haasteeksi muodostuu määrätietoisen ja fokusoidun kaupallistamiseen tähtäävän innovaatiotoiminnan tukeminen ja samanaikainen

I use U.S. patent data from 1970 to 1994 to estimate the effect of energy prices on energy-efficient innovations. Using patent citations to construct a measure of the usefulness of the existing base of scientific knowledge, I consider the effect of both demand-side factors, which spur innovative activity by increasing the value of new innovations, and supply-side factors, such as scientific advancements that make new innovations possible. I find that both energy prices and the quality of existing knowledge have strongly significant positive effects on innovation. Furthermore, I show that omitting the quality of knowledge adversely affects the estimation results.

There is now widespread agreement that, in the interest of energy conservation and substitution of oil, consumer prices for energy should reflect world market prices while taking account of longer-term trends. Are the energy policies of the major industrialised countries in conformity with this demand?