Study Of Legal Issues Concerning Public Enterprises Price Regulation In China

The fundamental purpose of public enterprises price regulation is to eliminate the contradiction between public enterprises and the public interests. Although improvements were made in the public utilities regulation system on the basis of reform in the past years, critical defects are obviously present in the system, such as the unreasonable pricing mechanism of public services, distortion of market demand and supply and resources scarcity, absence of public interests, and so on and so forth. This thesis, based on the analysis of the public utilities price regulatory system of our country in five aspects, is intended to put forward proposals for improvements of the public utilities price regulatory system by taking efforts to establish a public utility price legal regulatory system in our country.The first part of this thesis concentrates on defining and analyzing some fundamental concepts concerning the public utility price regulation. First, definition is given to clearly define public enterprises that shall be covered in the analysis of price regulations. Then, efforts are made to look into the reasonable grounds on which price regulations are required for public enterprises by probing the three key characteristics of public enterprises, i.e., the characteristics of natural monopoly and non-natural monopoly, the characteristics of social welfare and profits-making nature, and the characteristics of networking nature and regional limit of access. Furthermore, it is stressed that balance should be maintained between the public interests and the public enterprises'interests with the help of considerable pricing mechanism so as to maximize the consumers'interests and the public enterprises' interests.The second part of the thesis focuses on the necessity of public enterprises price regulation. The connotation of public enterprises price regulation implies it is intended to ensure the public of the common social welfare by continuously providing the public with reasonable public products and services with the help of the public enterprises pricing mechanism and the regulatory mechanism. And it is necessary for governments to execute the public enterprises price regulations as the regulator of market to ensure the social fairness of public enterprises. The point is proved in the light of legal economics and legal rationales. At last, the importance of price regulations is stressed in the aspects of preventing public enterprises from abusive uses of monopolistic positions and ensuring the social welfare of public utilities.In the third part of the thesis, analysis is focused on the current being and the defects of the public enterprises price regulatory system of our country. It is asserted that the absence of the public enterprises price legal regulatory system accounts for the problems in the public enterprises price regulations of our country. Analyses are put on the defects in legislation, pricing methods, pricing procedures and regulatory organizations in the public enterprises price regulatory system.In the fourth part, a comparative study is carried out to look into the various legal regulatory systems of the public enterprises in some developed countries, such as the USA, Germany, Britain and Japan, etc. It is proved that the successful regulatory practices concerning the public enterprises price regulations in these countries lie in the establishment of the legal regulatory system governing the public enterprises in these countries as they've laid the corner stone of the legal system by putting the consumers'interests and social fairness in the first place and pushing forward regulations under the legal framework. These successful practices are surely valuable for the establishment of the public enterprises price legal regulatory system in our country.The fifth part demonstrates the outcomes of the thesis in which proposals are put forward for establishment of the public enterprises price legal regulatory system in our country. The path to follow is that a legal regulatory system should be established in the highlight of putting-consumers-first and enhancing the social fairness of public enterprises. By doing this, it is intended, on the one hand, to ensure the market mechanism of public enterprises, and on the other hand, to improve and enforce the legal foundations for the public enterprises price regulation. The market dynamics helps to assure the public of social fairness in the public products and services provided by public enterprises and the legal regulatory framework serves to assure the orderly operation of public enterprises on the legislative and jurisdictional grounds.