In the Dark: How Much Do Power Sector Distortions Cost South Asia?
In the Dark: How Much Do Power Sector Distortions Cost South Asia?
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黑暗中：电力行业的扭曲给南亚造成了多大损失？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Fan Zhang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Fan Zhang
电力短缺是南亚发展的最大障碍之一。约有2.55亿人--超过世界离网人口的四分之一--生活在南亚，数百万家庭和公司都在经历频繁和长时间的停电。电力供应链每个环节的效率低下是造成电力短缺的重要原因。三种类型的扭曲导致了大多数的低效率：国有制和治理薄弱造成的体制扭曲;价格管制、补贴和交叉补贴造成的监管扭曲;以及能源使用造成过度环境和健康损害的社会扭曲（外部性）。使用一个共同的分析框架，并涵盖所有阶段的电力供应，在黑暗中确定和估计政策引起的扭曲如何影响南亚经济体。本书介绍了两个创新。首先，它超越了财政成本，通过衡量对消费者福祉、生产者剩余和环境成本的影响，从福利角度评估扭曲的影响。其次，本书采用了更广泛的行业定义，涵盖了整个电力供应链，包括上游燃料供应和下游接入和可靠性。这本书发现，电力部门扭曲的全部成本远远高于先前仅基于财政成本的估计：孟加拉国，印度和巴基斯坦的估计总经济成本为国内生产总值的4%-7%。一些最大的成本是上游和下游。很少有其他改革能像电力部门改革那样迅速带来巨大的经济效益。通过扩大电力供应和提高供电质量，电力部门改革也将直接惠及贫困家庭。最高的回报可能来自机构改革、扩大可靠的获取以及对碳和当地空气污染排放的适当定价。
Electricity shortages are among the biggest barriers to South Asia’s development. Some 255 million people—more than a quarter of the world’s off-grid population—live in South Asia, and millions of households and firms that are connected experience frequent and long hours of blackouts. Inefficiencies originating in every link of the electricity supply chain contribute significantly to the power deficit. Three types of distortions lead to most of the inefficiencies: institutional distortions caused by state ownership and weak governance; regulatory distortions resulting from price regulation, subsidies, and cross-subsidies; and social distortions (externalities) causing excessive environmental and health damages from energy use. Using a common analytical framework and covering all stages of power supply, In the Dark identifies and estimates how policy-induced distortions have affected South Asian economies. The book introduces two innovations. First, it goes beyond fiscal costs, evaluating the impact of distortions from a welfare perspective by measuring the impact on consumer wellbeing, producer surplus, and environmental costs. And second, the book adopts a broader definition of the sector that covers the entire power supply chain, including upstream fuel supply and downstream access and reliability. The book finds that the full cost of distortions in the power sector is far greater than previously estimated based on fiscal cost alone: The estimated total economic cost is 4–7 percent of the gross domestic product in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Some of the largest costs are upstream and downstream. Few other reforms could quickly yield the huge economic gains that power sector reform would produce. By expanding access to electricity and improving the quality of supply, power sector reform would also directly benefit poor households. The highest payoffs are likely to come from institutional reforms, expansion of reliable access, and the appropriate pricing of carbon and local air pollution emissions.