Gradual reforms and the emergence of energy market in China: Evidence from tests for convergence of energy prices
Hengyun Ma,
Les Oxley and
John Gibson
Energy Policy, 2009, vol. 37, issue 11, 4834-4850
Abstract:
This study investigates the emergence of energy markets by testing for convergence of energy prices with a new dataset on energy spot prices in 35 major cities in China. Both descriptive statistics and unit root are employed to test the convergence of energy prices for each of four fuel price series. The whole study period is divided into two sub-periods in order to reconcile the gradual energy reforms. The results show the steady improvement in energy market performance in China, especially during the second sub-period, which suggests that the market appears to be playing an increasing role in determining energy prices. While panel unit root tests show energy markets are integrated in China as a whole, city-by-city univariate unit root tests suggest that there are still many regional energy markets, probably because energy reserves (especially coal) vary widely across regions. Since China's energy economy is gradually moving towards market-oriented mechanisms, the existing literature may become obsolete soon.
Keywords: China; Energy; Price; convergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(09)00458-3
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
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:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:11:p:4834-4850
Access Statistics for this article
Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France
More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().