An Economic Study On The Consumer Rights And Interests Of Public Utilities In China

The scope of public utilities which covers a very wide, including education, health, environmental protection, public housing, public utilities and other aspects, a close relationship with people’s daily life. From the market structure, public utilities are in a natural monopoly; from the products, the public goods or services are public goods and quasi-public goods; the characteristics of positive externalities, public utilities and determines the characteristics of the social public welfare. This also reflects the importance of public rights and interests of consumers, once the public interests of consumers have violated, first impact is the public the basic needs, but also damage the social welfare and benefits.All the countries in the world attach great importance to the public, the academic circles are also due to various characteristics of public utilities for a continuous research. However, China’s public utilities have their own characteristics, cannot copy the foreign research methods and conclusions. Public utilities in China itself has the characters of the planned economy, but also in the market economic reform, has formed the unique nature of administrative monopoly and natural monopoly combination. In the process of public utilities, the government often as manager and supervisor, on the one hand cannot overcome the self-motivation, on the other hand, is not to give the operator a residual claim and leads to low efficiency, these are the public against the interests of consumers foreshadowed.At the same time, the research on the rights and interests of consumers in China are mainly concentrated in the field of law, not from the consumer surplus to the point of view of market transaction process whether consumers receive infringement. Although our law of consumer protection become more perfect, but also incapable of action for public utilities in the weak position of consumers. In reality, the problem of public utilities price hikes, arbitrary charges, poor quality of service is a hot consumer complaints, but the results have not been effectively resolved, the consumer activist nowhere, damaged the interests of no compensation.Faced with this situation, this paper tries to find out the reasons behind, so as to explore the solution. First of all, the paper found the welfare economics, economics of regulation and the effective competition theory as the foundation of economics to solve this problem. And then summarize the related research at home and abroad, to learn from previous experience, and find the breakthrough innovations in the field can be.In the scope of the study, this paper does not use the concept of general public, not only for the public utilities, but the general public in the selection, product or service with the public and quasi-public goods characteristics of consumers as the research object. The concept of the rights and interests of consumers in China’s "consumer protection law" as the basis, and control the consumer surplus theory in economics. Especially not only from the price point of view to measure, but the consumer into a measure of the overall effectiveness.Public utilities and consumer rights violations have certain particularity, this paper will summarize the phenomenon of price, quality and free up information opaque, the terms of overlord, rights difficult aspects, made a preliminary analysis of the causes of the natural monopoly, the economics of asymmetric information, transaction cost theory. Then, the participants of public abstract operators, consumers and regulators, constructs the game model under the assumption conditions, find out the corresponding role in the game behavior and payment. The government should withdraw from the management, the introduction of appropriate competition, reduce the cost of consumer rights conclusion.Outside the box, can attack jade. Our country public utilities in the protection of consumers’ rights and interests should be learning the advanced experience of other countries, learn from each other. Based on the USA, Britain, Japan’s three major developed countries public investigation, summed up the common law, and the path of reform in China should be carried out.Public service is an important component of China’s market economy, also is the important foundation of the livelihood of the people. Safeguard the interests of consumers, to help promote the consumption level, the realization of China’s consumption demand strategy. At the same time, the reform of public utilities, especially by means of safeguarding the interests of consumers forced reform of the political system, but also has important significance for China’s reform process.