Date of Award

1988

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Abstract

This dissertation is primarily concerned with evaluating the welfare implications of the National Energy Program (NEP) for Canada in static, partial- and general-equilibrium frameworks. Foreign participation in the Canadian economy is incorporated in analyzing the allocational and distributional effects of these petroleum pricing and fiscal policies.;The international redistribution of crude oil rents as well as efficiency and intranational revenue redistribution effects of both NEP pricing and fiscal policies on the Canadian crude oil market are addressed in partial equilibrium analyses.;A unique and relatively simple approach to general-equilibrium modelling (developed in association with John Whalley) is used to analyze the welfare effects of the NEP petroleum pricing policies. The basic model uses the assumption that Canada is a taker of commodity prices on world markets in solving the zero profit conditions to determine cost covering factor prices from given world goods prices. Full employment conditions for factors then determine industry production levels. Once domestic demands are calculated, excess demands for goods are obtained as a residual. The basic approach allows for further complicating structural elements such as foreign participation, price controls, taxes and non-traded goods to be introduced as required.;The NEP pricing and fiscal policies resulted in overconsumption and underproduction of petroleum in Canada compared to the levels of consumption and production that would have resulted from market-determined petroleum pricing and in the absence of the NEP fiscal policies. While allocational inefficiencies reflect a Canadian welfare loss, petroleum rents were also redistributed between foreigners and Canadians. The empirical results suggest that the transfer of rents from foreign producers to Canadians, reflected in a Canadian welfare gain, was not insignificant; indeed, it is found to have dominated the efficiency losses in consumption and production.;A procedure is also developed for calculating compensating and equivalent variation from market demand information. As a corollary to this latter work, it is shown that, under certain conditions, a partial-equilibrium analysis employing consumer's and producer's surpluses is capable of yielding as valid a representation of welfare change (i.e., compensating variation) as that achieved using the general-equilibrium modelling technique.

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