Consumer protection through prices: an analysis of the energetic sector in European Union countries

Codruţa Mare, Simona Laura Dragoş, Dan Tudor Lazăr and Cristian Mihai Dragoş ()
Additional contact information
Codruţa Mare: Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, România
Simona Laura Dragoş: Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, România, L.E.O., France
Dan Tudor Lazăr: Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, România
Cristian Mihai Dragoş: Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, România, L.E.O., France

The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, 2013, vol. 15, issue 34, 327-341

Abstract: Services of general economic interest (SGEI) are usually offered on markets characterized by monopoly, oligopoly, governmental or local authorities control or other forms of market imperfection. Consequently, issues related to consumer protection also present some particularities. In the energetic sector, the product offered (electricity) is absolutely homogeneous, allowing only consumer protection through price. Our study analyzed the presence of this phenomenon in the 27 countries of the European Union. Data was collected from official institutions, such as the World Bank, Europe's Energy Portal and the National Institutes of Statistics of the member states. Based on OLS regressions we demonstrated the existence of price-based protection for domestic consumers at EU level. Prices are regulated in such a way as to be correlated with the average wage. As an additional argument, we demonstrated that the energy price for industrial consumers follows a different formation mechanism, with main influence factor the energy import dependence.

Keywords: services of general economic interest; consumer protection by price; energy dependence. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 D12 D18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/temp/Article_1203.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aes:amfeco:v:15:y:2013:i:34:p:327-341

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal from Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Valentin Dumitru ().