气代煤政策中气荒现象的成因解析:政府和市场相继失灵的视角

Demystifying the Shortage of Natural Gas in Implementing the “Replacing Coal with Natural Gas” Policy—from the Perspective of Cascading Failures

良好的政策意愿不必然产生预期的政策效果,政策制定和执行的细节很大程度决定了政策的成败。针对具体的政策案例,解析政策失灵的成因兼具学术和实践价值。本文以2017年采暖季发生的气荒为例,从包括政府失灵和市场失灵相继失灵的视角,选取山西省的两个城市作为案例,剖析其成因。研究发现气荒中政府失灵的主要原因包括政策设计时未充分考虑资源供应情况,以及在政策执行时发生的多层级部门间的层层加码。这导致天然气需求增加过快,超过供给的增长,造成供需失衡。这种失衡在一个厚度缺乏、交易拥堵与安全性低的市场中得不到有效缓解,引发了气荒。

Well-intended public policy may not produce desired results. The details of policy design and implementation may determine the success or failure of public policies. Demystifying why specific policies fail or produce undesired ancillary consequences can provide valuable information for policy design and implementation. In this paper,the shortage of natural gas in the heating season of 2017 while implementing the "replacing coal with natural gas" policy was taken as an example,to illustrate how well-intended policy could fail. We developed a framework of cascading failures of both government failure and market failure to explain what happened in the outbreak of natural gas shortage,and chose two cities in Shanxi Province as cases to perform the analysis. We found that the policy was made without fully considering the availability of natural gas in the heating season and updating ancillary regulation,and was implemented with an amplification of the tasks through top-down administrative levels. Government failure significantly increased the demand of natural gas,which surpassed the increase of supply. However,the imbalance was not able to be alleviated in a failed market, which had low market thickness,congestion in both prices and constructions,and inadequate security,and eventually led to a shortage of natural gas. China is transitioning in a greener direction. Waves of environmental policies are being made. The result of this paper can provide insights for future policy making and implementation.