Fuel bills: Trouble turning up the heat | The Economist - 0 views
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Waller Alexander on 23 Oct 11This article is about how consumers are paying more for fuel than they have before. The "Big Six" says that it is because of the "opacity" in the price system. This is due to tariffs. There is a "lack of competition" because consumers are unable to verify which prices are the lowest due to the tariffs. Consumers may be purchasing energy from the least efficient company and not know it due to the artificial prices due to tariffs. There are also two other problems. In a supply and demand graph with a tariff in place, one expects that when a tariff is set, the demand will decrease; this is not totally true for energy. Energy is a very price inelastic good and therefore the quantity demanded will not change by much when the price is artificially risen. The other problem with this scenario is that there are only six major energy producers, the "Big Six". This market is a very oligopolist market. There might be a decline in competition simply due to the "Big Six" working as a group to form an imperfect market.