Essays on Chinese Energy Policy and Manufacturing

Abstract

These essays explore sources of inefficiency and mismeasurement, as well as possible routes for improvement via policy, in China’s coal power market and manufacturing sector. In the first chapter I develop a new model to quantify the behavior of market planners in China’s coal power sector as well as how this behavior affects the investment decisions of power plants. Chapter 2 compares different approaches to measuring and diagnosing the possible sources of inefficiency in China’s coal power market. Chapter 3 takes a broader look at the manufacturing sector in China to examine how differential treatment of state-owned enterprises should be accounted for in estimates of aggregate productivity for China.