The Welfare Effects of Raising Household Energy Prices in Poland
The Welfare Effects of Raising Household Energy Prices in Poland
复制标题
提高波兰家庭能源价格的福利效应
DOI：
10.5547/issn0195-6574-ej-vol17-no1-4
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发表时间：
1996
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
C. Wallich
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Caroline L. Freud;C. Wallich
我们考察了波兰家庭能源价格上涨对福利的影响。补贴家庭能源价格在转型经济体中很常见，事实证明这是一种非常倒退的做法。富人将更大比例的收入花在能源上，按绝对值计算，他们消耗的能源也更多。因此，我们排除了经常使用的推迟家庭能源价格上涨的社会福利理由。提高物价，同时通过社会援助计划向穷人提供救济，是第一个最好的应对措施。然而，如果政府想要放松调整，有几个选择是开放的，包括：向穷人进行实物转移、代金券、现金转移和生命线电价。我们的模拟表明，如果目前将价格提高到有效水平在政治上不可行，并且社会援助目标足够弱，那么在社会上，使用生命线定价和大幅涨价可能比整体但较小的价格上涨更好。
We examine the welfare effects from increasing household energy prices in Poland. Subsidizing household energy prices, common in the transition economies, is shown to be highly regressive. The wealthy spend a larger portion of their income on energy and consume more energy in absolute terms. We therefore rule out the oft-used social welfare argument for delaying household energy price increases. Raising prices, while targeting relief to the poor through a social assistance program is the first-best response. However, if governments want to ease the adjustment, several options are open, including: in-kind transfers to the poor, vouchers, in-cash transfers, and lifeline pricing for electricity. Our simulations show that if raising prices to efficient levels is not politically feasible at present and social assistance targeting is sufficiently weak, it may be socially better to use lifeline pricing and a large price increase than an overall, but smaller, price increase.