Economic Relation of Energy

Abstract or Introduction

The general market regulation involves direct government intervention in economic processes to achieve political goals or to correct market failures. Regulation can be implemented through guidelines, recommendations and laws. But a government-controlled influence of the price or quantity can affect the market equilibrium to which the government policies should not be aimed at. Hence it is of utmost importance that regulation in terms of subsidies, customs, price ceilings or lower price limits are used as careful as possible without neglecting the natural market forces primarily described by Adam Smith in his book "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776).
Since people are trading they are always looking for ways to make good profit out of their goods and services. To protect their countries domestic production, governments put tolls on foreign products to reduce the imports of the latter and to support domestic products. But this import tax has a rather contradictory effect: For one the government anticipates a strong domestic production with everyone buying this product rather than a substitutable foreign product. Domestic production increases indeed, but an import tax raise the price of the domestic product and lowers the price of the foreign product. This means, an import toll is good for domestic producers (foreign consumers) but bad for domestic consumers (foreign producers). An import tax is one possibility to regulating the market. But this example raises the question of governmental goals, which need to be determined before a government enforces a regulation: Do we want to protect and promote consumers or producers?