Research On The User Cost Of Non-renewable Resources And Its Compensation Mechanism In China

The non-renewable resources are the main body of resource utilization and energy supply in our country for a long time in the future.It is an important material basis for economic and social development.The exploitation and utilization of non-renewable resources has the basic characteristics of basic service,asset,exhaustion and negative externalities,requiring complete compensation for resource exploitation costs,including not only the internal direct production cost,but also external resource user cost and environmental damage cost.Among them,the resource user cost compensation,which is also the resource depletion loss compensation,is compensation for resource owner's equity and interests of future generations.Therefore,user cost compensation is the core of sustainable exploitation and utilization of non-renewable resources.China's non-renewable mineral resources exploitation has undergone a process from free use to paid use.Due to the partial failure of government regulation,the paid use of resources has some shortcomings in its both theoretical basis and operational mechanism.As a result,the compensation of resource user cost has not been standardized,sufficient and effectivly implemented.And the existing system of paid use of mineral resources and system of mining taxes and fees in adjusting interest's distribution and promoting resources development and environment protection are weak.This paper attempts to establish effective economic compensation and benefit adjustment mechanism in the process of resource development by reconstructing the user cost compensation mechanism of non-renewable resources to restrain and adjust the economic behaviors of owners,producers and consumers,and to promote sustainable development of non-renewable resources and resource locations.Based on this,this paper aims at promoting the sustainable exploitation and utilization of non-renewable resources,focusing on its economic basis of resource user cost compensation,and carries out a systematic study on China's coal resource user cost and its compensation mechanism with comprehensive utilization of cost measurement and policy analysis along the research line of "theoretical basis-status assessment-system reconstruction".Through the above research,this paper aims to establish an effective economic compensation and benefit coordination mechanism for the development of non renewable resources to regulae the economic behavior of owners,producers,and consumers,and to promote the fair use of intergenerational resources,the balanced and coordinated development of different regions and the health and sustainable development of the whole economy.The research work of the full paper mainly includes the following aspects:(1)On the basis of combing the literature,this paper builds a solid theoretical basis through finding out the background,the theoretical basis and the realistic way of resource user cost compensation from the relevant theories of mining economics,and through carrying on a resources optimization analysis from the main principles of resource allocation and the characteristics of intertemporal dynamic change to explore the theoretical model and method of resource user cost compensation.(2)After introduing the international mainstream user cost approach(UCA)and net price approach(NPA),the paper makes a detailed comparison between the two approaches from their different assumptions,the key points of parameters and the results of calculation.On this basis,the El Serafy user cost approach(UCA)is choosen as the paper's calculation method of coal user cost.(3)According to the theory of user cost and our reality national conditions,this paper uses user cost approach formulas d=D/R=1/(1+r)T and D=?×R/(1+r)T based on improved UCA to calculate the relative and absolute level of coal resource user costs between 1994 and 2014 and compare them with the coal resource taxes and fees collected in the same period.The study shows that the average user cost of coal mining in China between 1994 and 2014 is 31.49 yuan/ton at the level of 3%discount rate and there are more than 50%of the resource depletion losses in China's coal mining.It follows that there is a serious cross-generation negative externalities in the exploitation and utilization of coal resources in China.(4)On the basis of coal user cost calculation,this paper studies the status of non-renewable resources user cost compensation through a comprehensive analysis of China's mineral resources paid use system.Resource tax,mineral resources compensation and mining royalties constitute the main way to compensate the non-renewable resources user costs in China.There still exists some major problems such as the pathes of compensation are not standardized,the level of compensation is inadequate and the use of compensation is nor clear,which mainly due to the shortcomings of the current system of paid use of mineral resources in China.(5)After an in-depth analysis of the status quo and the international comparison and reference,the paper reconstructs China's user cost compensation mechanism of non-renewable resources from the objectives and principles,the basic ideas,the core framework and other supporting reform measures.The reconstruction of China's user cost compensation mechanism of non-renewable resources will aim to improve the non-renewable resources paid use system as the core from standardizing the compensation pathes of user cost,raising the compensation level of user cost and identifying user cost compensation,at the same time with the relevant areas of reforms including resource property rights,resource taxes and fees and resource prices to further build a resources and ecological compensation mechanism which can comprehensivly reflect market supply and demand and the scarcity of resources and embody the ecological value and intergenerational compensation.