Energy policy, market environment and the economic benefits of enterprises: evidence from China's petrochemical enterprises

This paper studies the external impact of China's energy policy and market environment changes and the internal impact of internal control and management on the economic benefits of petrochemical enterprises. From 2011 to 2015, China's energy and economic policies were adjusted, and the market environment underwent major changes. This paper quantifies these two factors into indexes and combines them with the enterprise internal control index to apply them to the economic benefit model of petrochemical enterprises. Regression analysis has been used for positive analysis. The study finds that changes in China's energy policy have played a guiding, regulating and promoting role in the development of petrochemical enterprises; the more restrictions the market environment imposes on petrochemical enterprises, the fewer economic benefits the petrochemical enterprises receive. Strengthening internal control in petrochemical enterprises can offset some unfavorable factors, and the economic benefits for downstream petrochemical enterprises are better than those for upstream ones. This paper reveals the effects of the energy policy action index, the market environment restriction index and the internal control index on the economic benefits of petrochemical enterprises. The policy recommendations are as follows: governments should improve the market environment and formulate policies that will benefit upstream petrochemical enterprises, especially oil and gas extraction enterprises, by raising product prices and increasing profit margins.