Study On Effects Of Price Regulation In Urban Central Heating

For a long time,the urban central heating industry is an important part of municipal public utilities in our country,in order to ensure the rights and interests of northern residents when they use central heating;the central heating has been implementing strict price regulation.However,with the continuous development of market economy,welfare heating,and administrative monopoly management system exposed more and more problems under the traditional system of price regulation,the central heating seriously lags behind the new industry development needs.Since 2003,China began to reform central heating industry in the north of China;the promoting of heating system is conducted as a matter of people’s vital interests,social stability and building of a conservation-minded society.Since the reform,the central heating prices remains fully regulated by the government,the real cost and market demand cannot be reflected in the central heating industry.The central heating industry still has many problems under the current price regulation system.For example,how to set the heating price,how to find a new balance between protecting the heating enterprise’s economic benefits and rights of the consumers,how to make low-income groups enjoy central heating,how to make the utilization of heating resources more efficient,and so on.To solve these problems,this article mainly analyses and evaluates the affection of the heating price regulation from the perspective of efficiency,fairness and environment and brings out corresponding suggestions.In terms of efficiency effect,we mainly analyzed the influence of price regulation on the heating price inversion,enterprise production conditions and residents’ consumption.Based on the data of 55 heating companies in Liaoning province with their core business is central heating,we use the super efficiency DEA method to evaluate enterprise efficiency.Then come to the conclusion that China’s central heating price distortion is very serious,industry efficiency is generally low,and there are many input redundancy and output deficiency in heating industry.In terms of fair effect,we use the data of 852 residents’ questionnaires which are got through the field investigation of the north cities such as Jinan and Shenyang;we analyzed the residents’ ability to pay for central heating and the influence on different income levels of central heating subsidy policy.And explore the different factors that influence of central heating payment capacity in different income groups.Finally,we use the 2005-2013 panel data of the northern cities,explores the factors that influence residents’ ability to pay for central heating in different cities on the macro level.Study found that there are inverse income subsidies and leakage effect in central heating,high income groups are benefit from the current subsidy policy but the low-income group still have considerable pressure to pay for the central heating.Factors that affect residents’ ability to pay for central heating include some microscopic factors such as occupation,family size,and some macro factors between the cities,such as environment,the resources endowment,and the urban economy development level and so on.In terms of environmental effect,we comparative analysis the change of PM2.5 concentrations between heating period and un-heating period in northern cities,and estimates the potential of energy conservation and emissions reduction,and the economic losses can be reduced in the central heating industry.Through calculation,if the heating enterprise efficiency is improved,the provinces of northern China can reduce 19.9914 million tons of coal consumption;reduce 71.3294 million tons of carbon dioxide and 4.598 million tons sculpture dioxide emissions.Finally,we analyze the reasons that the heating industry consumes excessive coal and produce large amounts of gas.Finally,according to the above conclusions,with the social welfare maximization as the goal,we put forward some policy suggestions from the aspects of pricing practice,industry policy and regulatory reform of the system and heating subsidies.