Removing Energy Subsidies Research Articles

Effects of Removing Energy Subsidies and Implementing Carbon Taxes on Urban, Rural and Gender Welfare: Evidence from Mexico

The demand for different energy goods and services is a fundamental component in a country’s economic structure for development. Understanding it is vital in designing economic policies, such as taxes, that can improve the welfare of the population. A comprehension of the distributional effects of elasticities and the application of them to simulate household responses to price changes, as well as a calculation of the welfare impacts on poor and rich households in Mexico, should inform policy design. This paper uses the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH) from 1996 to 2018 to estimate the demand of Mexican households for fuels, specifically electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, and gasoline. A Quasi Ideal Quadratic Demand System (QUAIDS) is employed to analyse the effects of removing energy subsidies and introducing a carbon tax. The results indicate that welfare losses would be regressive concerning electricity price increases, while changes in gasoline prices would be progressive. Redistributing the tax revenues accrued by removing energy subsidies and imposing the carbon tax would have more progressive effects on the economy of Mexican households, with welfare gains of up to 350% for the poorest households in the case of electricity consumption taxes.

A systems dynamics simulation model of a steel supply chain-case study

Considering the complexity, interactions, and dynamics that permeate the Supply Chain (SC), computational modeling and simulation promote determining the system's behavior and decision-making. Among simulation techniques, system dynamics (SD) investigate on recognition of variables and their dynamic behavior trend throughout time in the SC. This paper presents a comprehensive SD model related to upstream steel SC management up to four echelons: concentrate, pellet, sponge iron, and steel. The model noticed Causal-Loops Diagrams (CLD) and Stock-Flow Diagrams (SFD) and provided a simulation framework. The robustness of the proposed model was evaluated by implementing the defined model in a multi-echelon steel complex in Iran. Various scenarios were analyzed applying stochastic simulation to include selected random variables. Iron ore grade and tonnage play the most critical role in the network’s performance. With an approximately 4% increase in the iron ore grade, steel production costs decreased 2.4%. The influence of the simultaneous uncertainty in iron ore grade and iron ore supply in the range of extreme levels of actual historical data resulted in an increase and decrease of +14% and −32% on the total steel production costs, respectively. Furthermore, removing energy subsidies and increasing five times in price results in a rise in total expenses up to 60% and a fall in the marginal profit up to 48%.

The impact of groundwater depletion on agricultural production in India

India relies on groundwater irrigation to produce staple grain crops that provide over half of the calories consumed by its over 1.3 billion people. While groundwater has helped India achieve grain self-sufficiency, aquifers have been overexploited across much of the country and its implications for crop production are unclear. To understand how groundwater depletion affects staple grain (wheat, rice, maize, pearl millet, and sorghum) production in India, we ran district-level panel regressions using agricultural census, groundwater observation, and gridded weather datasets over a ten-year study period (2004–2013). We find that nationally, declining groundwater levels are associated with significant reductions in yield, cropped area, and production for wheat, rice, and maize in the winter season. Despite the negative impacts of groundwater depletion on crop production, we find little evidence that farmers are switching from planting more water-intensive to less water-intensive grains. Using profit-based decision modeling, we further investigated the effects of agricultural energy prices on crop choice in the monsoon season across Haryana and Punjab, which are responsible for over 60% of India’s grain production, have high electricity subsidies, and have rapidly depleting water tables. We find that eliminating energy subsidies for groundwater pumping would likely not encourage farmers to switch to planting less water-intensive crops, though sensitivity analyses suggest that it could encourage the adoption of increased water conservation efforts. In summary, our analyses reveal a discernable impact of groundwater depletion on crop production in India and suggest that reducing or removing energy subsidies may largely affect water use but not crop choice.

Energy subsidy reform evaluation research – reviews in Iran

AbstractThis paper provides an ex post evaluation of Iran's energy subsidy reform of main law, definitions, its aims and scope, its effectiveness, and problems. Based on an assessment of policy reports, actual data, peer‐reviewed studies, and regression models, this study suggests evidence that the removal of energy subsidies in Iran was effective in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions only in the first 2 years of policy implementation. But, over the next years, the demand for energy commodities increased because of the incomplete implementation of the policy. Besides some local and international economic, social, and political challenges, the policy was not completed in the subsequent years because the government did not prepare its preliminary theoretical framework and requirements in the three stages of legislation and transparency – implementation and management, control, and adjustment of the negative policy impacts. Moreover, the decline in environmental emissions occurred mainly due to fuel switching, as natural gas consumption in power plants, industries, and transport, and rather the use of renewable energies, increased substantially. Likewise, at the time of removal of energy subsidies, the government introduced a cash transfer scheme until the present. This compensation scheme has had significant burdens on the government budget and reaches the trillions of rials each year, while in the first year of the policy, it improved the socioeconomic welfare. The econometric results showed that removing energy subsidies is an effective policy in reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Iran. This study provides important policy recommendations for sustainable energy security and economic development in Iran. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Household heterogeneity impact of removing energy subsidies in China: Direct and indirect effect

Reforming subsidies for fossil fuels is a challenging prospect for many governments. The impact of such a reform on households is a major concern for the government. This paper investigates the heterogeneous impacts of eliminating energy subsidies on households in China from direct and indirect perspectives. The results of the direct effects show that the removal of energy subsidies, particularly for removing electricity and gas subsidies, has a greater negative impact on the poor than on the rich. From an indirect perspective, this article shows that the lower the per capita disposable income, the higher the proportion of consumption to disposable income, and the greater the indirect impact of eliminating subsidies. Meanwhile, the impact is not only related to household income but consumer goods. Moreover, the indirect effects of eliminating subsidies on households differ across energy types. Specifically, eliminating electricity subsidies has the greatest effect on households, followed by transportation fuel and gas. We suggest that targeted supportive measures need to be taken towards the implementation of subsidy reform, particularly in countries with greater inequality, to minimize the negative effects on the poor.

Causes of energy poverty in a cold and resource-rich country: evidence from Kazakhstan

ABSTRACTKazakhstan is an upper-middle-income country and one of the coldest countries in the world with rich energy resources and energy prices considerably lower than in developed countries. This paper presents the first comprehensive overview of household fuel use in Kazakhstan and assesses the causes and extent of energy poverty using the Households Living Conditions Survey dataset of 12,000 households. The results show that there is an overwhelming reliance on coal in Kazakhstan: 40% of all surveyed households use coal for heating, cooking and other needs. In general, liquefied petroleum gas is mainly used for cooking, coal and firewood for heating, while electricity is rarely used for heating. Energy poverty was less prevalent in oil and gas rich regions, due to low gas prices and higher income levels in those regions, while households located in the North Kazakhstan, Central and East Kazakhstan mainly suffer from lack of cleaner fuel options, income poverty, longer and colder winters and consequently energy affordability. Despite low energy prices in Kazakhstan, the results demonstrate that 28% of surveyed households spend more than 10% of their income on energy. Gas and district heating infrastructure coverage and income inequality across its regions contributed the most to energy poverty in Kazakhstan. Energy prices are regulated and indirectly subsidised. Removing energy subsidies alone may worsen energy affordability of households. Offering direct subsidies to cover part of the energy expenditures may not fully solve the problem, but subsidies, interventions for efficient technologies and fuels, dwelling energy-efficiency improvements are necessary.

The impacts of removing energy subsidies on economy-wide rebound effects in China: An input-output analysis

Facing with the increasing contradiction of economic growth, energy scarcity and environmental deterioration, energy conservation and emissions abatement have been ambitious targets for the Chinese government. Improving energy efficiency through technological advancement is a primary measure to achieve these targets. However, the existence of energy rebound effects may completely or partially offset energy savings associated with technological advancement. This paper adopted a modified input-output model to estimate the economy-wide energy rebound effects across China's economic sectors with the consideration of energy subsidies. The empirical results show that the aggregate rebound effect of China is about 1.9% in 2007–2010, thus technological advancement significantly restrains energy consumption increasing. Removing energy subsidies will cause the aggregate rebound effect declines to 1.53%. Specifically, removing subsidies for coal and nature gas can reduce the rebound effects signifcantly, while removing the subsidies for oil products has a small impact on rebound effect. The existence of rebound effects implies that technological advancement should be cooperated with energy price reform so as to achieve the energy saving target. In addition, the government should consider the diversity of economic sectors and energy types when design the reform schedule.

Baseline analysis of productivity changes with and without considering carbon dioxide emissions in the major manufacturing sector of Indonesia

This paper provides empirical evidence of changes in the productivities of manufacturing firms in Indonesia over time, in the form of total factor productivity (TFP), from 1990 to 2010 with and without considering carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Employing cleaned and balanced panel datasets for four periods, 1990–1995, 1998–2000, 2003–2006, and 2008–2010, the analysis enables an evaluation of the impact of implemented policies or economic circumstances during each period. The Malmquist productivity index is employed to estimate TFP without CO2 emissions over time, whereas the Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index is applied to estimate TFP with CO2 emissions over time. Furthermore, the influence of energy factors on environmental productivity is also investigated. The results show that on average, TFP with CO2 emissions over time has grown faster than TFP without CO2 emissions, particularly for periods 1, 2, and 4. Technical progress is the basis of productivity growth after removing energy subsidies, and the change in environmental productivity is associated with the adjusted energy prices. Constructive policy designs can be derived from this paper that will enhance manufacturing sector performance after changes in the prices of oil commodities.

The distributional impacts of removing energy subsidies in China

The distributional impact on households is an important factor for the acceptance of energy subsidy reform. Based on energy consumption features of the Chinese households at different income levels, this paper adopts an input–output price model to analyze possible impacts of removing energy subsidies on income distribution under different scenarios. Results show that: (1) The distributional impacts of removing subsidies vary by fossil fuels. From the perspectives of combined effects, transport fuel subsidy removal and coal subsidy removal have the strongest and the weakest progressive effects respectively, while the removal of electricity subsidies has a regressive effect. Moreover, the removal of petroleum product subsidies has the greatest impact on households, followed by the removal of electricity and coal subsidies, respectively. (2) Indirect impacts of energy subsidy reform are greater than direct impacts on households. (3) Government price controls can reduce the negative impact of energy subsidy reform. Policy implications are thus summarized. Energy subsidy reform can start from the energy that has the strongest progressive effect and the minimum impact on households. The Chinese government can take certain compensatory measures to mitigate the impact of reform on poor households.

Economic and environmental gains of China's fossil energy subsidies reform: A rebound effect case study with EIMO model

Abstract Energy consumption and efficiency emerged as the hottest topic in the context of China's sustainable development. Energy subsidies and “rebound effect” were closely related to this topic while few combinative studies on them with a focus on China. This paper employed a co-thinking approach, focusing on how the energy subsidies reform could mitigate the rebound effect in China, and how to achieve an “economic and environmental gains” that reduced pecuniary spending, improved the distorted energy market and reduced energy consumption simultaneously. Firstly, with price-gap approach we calculated the total energy subsidies scale of China in 2007, which amounted to582.0 billion CNY; then we detected and identified rebound effect of China energy consumption with the features. Furthermore, based on China 2007 monetary input–output table and energy flow analysis, we compiled a hybrid physical energy input and monetary output model (EIMO) to simulate the mitigation effect of subsidies reform. Results showed that removing energy subsidies would decrease ultimate demand of different economy sectors and reduce the accumulatively physical consumption of coal, oil, natural gas and electricity by 17.74, 13.47, 3.64 and 15.82 million tce, respectively. Finally we discussed relevant policy issues on China's energy subsidies reform in depth.

A mathematical modeling for incorporating energy price hikes into total natural gas consumption forecasting

In some countries that energy prices are low, price elasticity of demand may not be significant. In this case, large increase or hike in energy prices may impact energy consumption in a way which cannot be drawn from historical data. This paper proposes an integrated adaptive fuzzy inference system (FIS) to forecast long-term natural gas (NG) consumption when prices experience large increase. To incorporate the impact of price hike into modeling, a novel procedure for construction and adaptation of Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy inference system (TS-FIS) is suggested. Linear regressions are used to construct a first order TS-FIS. Furthermore, adaptive network-based FIS (ANFIS) is used to forecast NG consumption in power plants. To cope with random uncertainty in small historical data sets, Monte Carlo simulation is utilized to generate training data for ANFIS. To show the applicability and usefulness of the proposed model, it is applied for forecasting of annual NG consumption in Iran where removing energy subsidies has resulted in a hike in NG prices.

A new adaptive fuzzy inference system for electricity consumption forecasting with hike in prices

Large increase or hike in energy prices has proven to impact electricity consumption in a way which cannot be drawn from historical data, especially when price elasticity of demand is not significant. This paper proposes an integrated adaptive fuzzy inference system (FIS) to estimate and forecast long-term electricity consumption when prices experience large increase. To this end, first a novel procedure for construction and adaptation of Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy inference system (TS-FIS) is suggested. Logarithmic linear regressions are estimated with historical data and used to construct an initial first-order TS-FIS. Then, in the adaptation phase, expert knowledge is used to define new fuzzy rules which form a new secondary FIS for electricity forecasting. To show the applicability and usefulness of the proposed model, it is applied for forecasting of annual electricity consumption in Iran where removing energy subsidies has resulted in a hike in electricity prices. Gross domestic product (GDP), population and electricity price are three inputs for the initial TS-FIS. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the expert estimation on possible change in electricity per capita, change in electricity intensity and the ratio of GDP elasticity to population elasticity when price hikes. Based on the information collected, a fuzzy rule base is formed and used to construct the secondary FIS which is used for electricity forecasting until 2016. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed model of this paper is compared with three other models namely ANFIS, ANN and one-stage regression in terms of their mean absolute percentage error. The comparison shows a superior performance for the proposed FIS model.

An evaluation of the welfare effects of reducing energy subsides in Iran

Energy prices in Iran have traditionally been heavily subsidized by the Government, and as a result, energy consumption per capita in Iran is close to the European Union level. The welfare effects of efforts to raise energy prices closer to world levels are examined in this paper. Reform of energy prices is an important element of the “Economic Reform Plan” (2010–2014) for Iran. We first analyze the relationship between energy consumption, energy and non-energy prices by estimating the household expenditure function. The results show that a higher energy prices will decrease energy consumption by Iranian households. Second, we evaluate the impact of a rise of energy prices on the household welfare by measuring the compensating variation (CV) in five steps with a compensating payment. The results show that Iranian household welfare will increase with a 100% or 200% rise in energy prices, if the government pays 20%, 30% or 50% of the $20 billion income resulting from removing energy subsidies. While, in contrast, Iranian household welfare will decrease with a 400% and 500% rise in energy prices, if the government payment is 20% or 30% of $20 billion income.

Estimates of energy subsidies in China and impact of energy subsidy reform

For a transitional economy such as China, some energy subsidies are reasonable, and sometimes even necessary for achieving social goals. However, with rising energy prices and environmental concerns, we see conflicts emerging between energy subsidies, energy demand/supply fundamentals and climate change considerations. Energy subsidies have important implications for sustainable development through their effects on energy use, efficiency and the choice of fuel source. This paper applies the price-gap approach to estimate China's energy subsidies. Results indicate that China's energy subsidies amounted to CNY 356.73 billion in 2007, equivalent to 1.43% of GDP. Subsidies for oil products consumption are the largest, followed by subsidies for the electricity and coal sectors. Furthermore, a CGE model is used to analyze the economic impacts of energy subsidy reforms. Our findings show that removing energy subsidies will result in a significant fall in energy demand and emissions, but will have negative impacts on macroeconomic variables. We conclude that offsetting policies could be adopted such that certain shares of these subsidies are reallocated to support other sustainable development measures, which could lead to reducing energy intensity and favoring the environment.

Subsidies for fossil fuels and climate change: a comparative perspective

This paper argues that the most obvious measure to combat greenhouse gas emissions is to remove the vast subsidies that promote higher energy consumption in more than half of the countries in the world, and that this measure should take precedence over many others. The article discusses also why removing energy subsidies is so difficult, and which type of state may succeed. This question is examined with reference to China, India and Russia, all major contributors to global warming. Non‐democratic governments and energy importers might be expected to be more likely to halt subsidies. In fact, energy trade imbalances do not seem to significantly affect the capacity to reduce subsidies. The risk of social unrest is a political restraint in all three countries. Perhaps surprisingly, democratic states may be better positioned to remove subsidies than non‐democratic ones.

A comment on the paper by David Newbery

Facing with the increasing contradiction of economic growth, energy scarcity and environmental deterioration, energy conservation and emissions abatement have been ambitious targets for the Chinese government. Improving energy efficiency through technological advancement is a primary measure to achieve these targets. However, the existence of energy rebound effects may completely or partially offset energy savings associated with technological advancement. This paper adopted a modified input-output model to estimate the economy-wide energy rebound effects across China's economic sectors with the consideration of energy subsidies. The empirical results show that the aggregate rebound effect of China is about 1.9% in 2007–2010, thus technological advancement significantly restrains energy consumption increasing. Removing energy subsidies will cause the aggregate rebound effect declines to 1.53%. Specifically, removing subsidies for coal and nature gas can reduce the rebound effects signifcantly, while removing the subsidies for oil products has a small impact on rebound effect. The existence of rebound effects implies that technological advancement should be cooperated with energy price reform so as to achieve the energy saving target. In addition, the government should consider the diversity of economic sectors and energy types when design the reform schedule.