IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/spmain/hal-02314758.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Lin, B., Jiang, Z, 2012. Designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in China. Energy Policy 42, pp. 164-173: How biased is the measurement of household's loss?

Author

Listed:
  • Evens Salies

    (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po)

Abstract

The three-tier inclining block tariff (‘‘IBT'') issued by the Chinese government in 2010 is focusing attention of energy economists, among whom Lin and Jiang (2012. Designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in China. Energy Policy 42, 164–173) who assert that the issued tariff is unsuited to meet the social and environmental objectives it was designed for. These authors offer an alternative four-tiered IBT, the performance of which they show by evaluating its welfare and income distribution effects taking the current uniform tariff as reference. To measure the surplus loss to a representative household in a given block the authors use the trapezoid approach. But, because of the limited data on demand, they calculate the household's response by using a constant point estimate of the own-price elasticity of electricity demand. In this note I show there is an incompatibility between these two modeling assumptions. Combining them is causing an upward bias in the surplus loss, which is of significance given the large price change associated with the IBT. I then offer a correction to this bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Evens Salies, 2012. "Lin, B., Jiang, Z, 2012. Designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in China. Energy Policy 42, pp. 164-173: How biased is the measurement of household's loss?," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-02314758, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-02314758
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02314758
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Zhaohua & Zhang, Bin & Zhang, Yixiang, 2012. "Determinants of public acceptance of tiered electricity price reform in China: Evidence from four urban cities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 235-244.
    2. Lin, Boqiang & Jiang, Zhujun, 2012. "Designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 164-173.
    3. Arjan Ruijs, 2009. "Welfare and Distribution Effects of Water Pricing Policies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 43(2), pages 161-182, June.
    4. Freund, Caroline & Wallich, Christine, 1997. "Public-Sector Price Reforms in Transition Economies: Who Gains? Who Loses? The Case of Household Energy Prices in Poland," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 35-59, October.
    5. Espey, James A. & Espey, Molly, 2004. "Turning on the Lights: A Meta-Analysis of Residential Electricity Demand Elasticities," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 36(1), pages 1-17, April.
    6. Andres Vazquez, 1998. "An alternative definition of the arc elasticity of demand," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 25(6), pages 553-562, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Zhaohua & Sun, Yefei & Wang, Bo, 2020. "Policy cognition is more effective than step tariff in promoting electricity saving behaviour of residents," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Christophe Muller & Huijie Yan, 2018. "Household Fuel Use in Rural China," AMSE Working Papers 1808, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    3. Gong, Chengzhu & Yu, Shiwei & Zhu, Kejun & Hailu, Atakelty, 2016. "Evaluating the influence of increasing block tariffs in residential gas sector using agent-based computational economics," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 334-347.
    4. Li, Yao & Fan, Jin & Zhao, Dingtao & Wu, Yanrui & Li, Jun, 2016. "Tiered gasoline pricing: A personal carbon trading perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 194-201.
    5. Chang Liu & Boqiang Lin, 2018. "Evaluating Design of Increasing Block Tariffs for Residential Natural Gas in China: A Case Study of Henan Province," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 1335-1351, December.
    6. Fu, Xin & Zeng, Xiao-Jun & Feng, Pengpeng & Cai, Xiuwen, 2018. "Clustering-based short-term load forecasting for residential electricity under the increasing-block pricing tariffs in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PB), pages 76-89.
    7. Wang, Chen & Zhou, Kaile & Yang, Shanlin, 2017. "A review of residential tiered electricity pricing in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 533-543.
    8. He, Xiaoping & Reiner, David, 2016. "Electricity demand and basic needs: Empirical evidence from China's households," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 212-221.
    9. Zhu, Dan & Tao, Shu & Wang, Rong & Shen, Huizhong & Huang, Ye & Shen, Guofeng & Wang, Bin & Li, Wei & Zhang, Yanyan & Chen, Han & Chen, Yuanchen & Liu, Junfeng & Li, Bengang & Wang, Xilong & Liu, Wenx, 2013. "Temporal and spatial trends of residential energy consumption and air pollutant emissions in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 17-24.
    10. Hung, Ming-Feng & Chie, Bin-Tzong, 2017. "The long-run performance of increasing-block pricing in Taiwan's residential electricity sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 782-793.
    11. Sun, Chuanwang, 2015. "An empirical case study about the reform of tiered pricing for household electricity in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 383-389.
    12. Wu, Ya & Zhang, Li, 2017. "Evaluation of energy saving effects of tiered electricity pricing and investigation of the energy saving willingness of residents," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 208-217.
    13. Liu, Chang & Lin, Boqiang, 2020. "Is increasing-block electricity pricing effectively carried out in China? A case study in Shanghai and Shenzhen," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    14. Zabaloy, Maria Florencia & Viego, Valentina, 2022. "Household electricity demand in Latin America and the Caribbean: A meta-analysis of price elasticity," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    15. Nataraj, Shanthi & Hanemann, W. Michael, 2008. "Does Marginal Price Matter? A Regression Discontinuity Approach to Estimating Water Demand," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt2jc295gr, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    16. Chitnis, Mona & Sorrell, Steve, 2015. "Living up to expectations: Estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for UK households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(S1), pages 100-116.
    17. Fais, Birgit & Blesl, Markus & Fahl, Ulrich & Voß, Alfred, 2014. "Comparing different support schemes for renewable electricity in the scope of an energy systems analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 479-489.
    18. Massimo Filippini & Bettina Hirl & Giuliano Masiero, 2015. "Rational habits in residential electricity demand," IdEP Economic Papers 1506, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.
    19. Fell, Harrison & Li, Shanjun & Paul, Anthony, 2014. "A new look at residential electricity demand using household expenditure data," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 37-47.
    20. Kuang, Yunming & Lin, Boqiang, 2021. "Performance of tiered pricing policy for residential natural gas in China: Does the income effect matter?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer economics: Theory; Equity; Justice; Inequality; and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; Government Policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-02314758. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Contact - Sciences Po Departement of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.