Natural gas plays an important role in the mitigation of climate change, yet its development is constrained by the current natural gas pricing mechanism in China. In the context of the natural gas pricing reform, this paper analyzes the potential effects on price level and total output. Through the input–output model, some conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) The gas pricing reform has relatively great impact on the products’ price of the sectors that have large gas consumption, such as industrial sectors and some service sectors, and on the total output of the gas production and supply sectors and the petroleum and natural gas extraction sectors, whereas the reform has relatively small impact on other industries; (2) effects of gas pricing reform on urban and rural residents are dissymmetrical, with larger effects on urban residents and (3) the reform has relatively small impacts on both various price indices and total output levels; thus, the government can realize the promotion of gas pricing reform nationwide at a cost of relatively small increase in general price level and little lose of total output.
