| Water as an indispensable natural resource is central to human life and plays a critical role in urban survival and social development. The importance of water resources and economic and technical characteristics of the urban water supply industry decide the necessity of price regulating by the government in water supply industry. It has been widely accepted that the price lever should play an increasingly important role in water resources distribution, waster requirements adjustment, and water pollution prevention in a critical time where our economic pattern is transforming and market economy is being introduced for resources distribution. Our urban water supply industry, however, is plagued with inefficient pricing, structuring, and incentive mechanisms as well as with inefficient governmental regulating, division of duties, and overseeing mechanisms.Based on governmental regulatory economics and water supply pricing theories, the article focuses on the topics of regulatory constraints on urban water supply pricing in Kunming by analyzing water resources requirements in Kunming and water supply prices and governmental regulations in Kunming, which includes water price structuring, cost analysis, user affordability, problems found and solutions, marketizaiton background of public utilities, urban water supply management, price regulatory systems, contents, and problems, to name a few. Discussions are made on such topics as water price regulatory requirements, principals, objectives, contents, and methodology by combining standardized and empirical analysis. Proposals are made in terms of improving urban water supply management, regulating franchising practices, optimizing pricing mechanisms, setting up social overseeing mechanisms and specific regulating measures.The article contains six parts, wherein Part 1 deals with the purpose of this article and significance of urban water supply regulating study; Part 2 details the regulating requirements on urban water supply from the perspective of economic and technical characteristics of tap water industry; Part 3 explains pricing regulating theories, methodology, water supply pricing theories including price levels, regulatory constraints on price structuring, incentives, as well as urban water pricing implications, costs analysis, pricing objectives, methodology, and measurement models; Part 4 introduces the status of urban water supply pricing and regulating in Kunming and analyzes the problems found; Part 5 provides helpful proposals on policy making based on urban water supply price regulating practices in Kunming; and Part 6 provides the conclusion of the article and other study possibilities. |
