Subsidy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa

Subsidy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa
Author: Mr.Carlo A Sdralevich
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2014-07-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498350437

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable. This paper explores the challenges of replacing generalized price subsidies with more equitable social safety net instruments, including the short-term inflationary effects, and describes the features of successful subsidy reforms.

Fuel and Food Price Subsidies - Issues and Reform Options

Fuel and Food Price Subsidies - Issues and Reform Options
Author: International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2008-08-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498334199

Government price subsidies are pervasive in developed, emerging, and low-income countries. A subsidy is a form of government intervention resulting in a deviation of an actual price facing consumers and producers from a specified benchmark price. Subsidies affect consumption and production patterns as well as the distribution of resources, with important implications for the budget, expenditure composition, and long-term growth. They can and often do involve fiscal costs, but not all affect government fiscal accounts in the same way. Price subsidies have spillover effects onto prices and quantities in domestic, regional, or global markets. This paper discusses the key issues and policy options in the reform of subsidies for fossil fuels and selected food commodities, and their implications for the work of the Fund.

Energy Subsidy Reform

Energy Subsidy Reform
Author: Mr.Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484339169

Energy subsidies are aimed at protecting consumers, however, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. This book provides the most comprehensive estimates of energy subsidies currently available for 176 countries and an analysis of “how to do” energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights from 22 country case studies undertaken by the IMF staff and analyses carried out by other institutions.

Government Subsidies

Government Subsidies
Author: Mr.Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 58
Release: 1995-09-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451851480

This paper addresses the problems of defining and measuring government subsidies, examines why and how government subsidies are used as a fiscal policy tool, assesses their economic effects, appraises international empirical evidence on government subsidies, and offers options for their reform. Recent international trends in government subsidy expenditure are analyzed for the 16-year period from 1975 to 1990, using general government subsidy data for 60 countries from the System of National Accounts (SNA) and central government expenditure on subsidies and other current transfers for 68 countries from Government Finance Statistics (GFS). The paper reviews major policy options for subsidy reform, focusing on ways to improve the cost-effectiveness of subsidy programs.

Energy Subsidy Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa

Energy Subsidy Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa
Author: Mr.Trevor Serge Coleridge Alleyne
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2013-08-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484366549

The reform of energy subsidies is an important but challenging issue for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. There is a relatively large theoretical and empirical literature on this issue. While this paper relies on that literature, too, it tailors its discussion to SSA countries to respond to the following questions: Why it is important to reduce energy subsidies? What are the difficulties involved in energy subsidy reform? How best can a subsidy reform be implemented? This paper uses various sources of information on SSA countries: quantitative assessments, surveys, and individual (but standardized) case studies.

The Economisation of Climate Change

The Economisation of Climate Change
Author: Jakob Skovgaard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108605168

The effort to address climate change cuts across a wide range of non-environmental actors and policy areas, including international economic institutions such as the Group of Twenty (G20), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These institutions do not tend to address climate change so much as an environmental issue, but as an economic one, a dynamic referred to as 'economisation'. Such economisation can have profound consequences for how environmental problems are addressed. This book explores how the G20, IMF, and OECD have addressed climate finance and fossil fuel subsidies, what factors have shaped their specific approaches, and the consequences of this economisation of climate change. Focusing on the international level, it is a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers, and policymakers in the fields of politics, political economy and environmental policy.

The Unequal Benefits of Fuel Subsidies

The Unequal Benefits of Fuel Subsidies
Author: Mr.David Coady
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 25
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 145520532X

This paper reviews evidence on the impact of fuel subsidy reform on household welfare in developing countries. On average, the burden of subsidy reform is neutrally distributed across income groups; a $0.25 decrease in the per liter subsidy results in a 6 percent decrease in income for all groups. More than half of this impact arises from the indirect impact on prices of other goods and services consumed by households. Fuel subsidies are a costly approach to protecting the poor due to substantial benefit leakage to higher income groups. In absolute terms, the top income quintile captures six times more in subsidies than the bottom. Issues that need to be addressed when undertaking subsidy reform are also discussed, including the need for a new approach to fuel pricing in many countries.

The Distributional Implications of the Impact of Fuel Price Increases on Inflation

The Distributional Implications of the Impact of Fuel Price Increases on Inflation
Author: Mr. Kangni R Kpodar
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2021-11-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1616356154

This paper investigates the response of consumer price inflation to changes in domestic fuel prices, looking at the different categories of the overall consumer price index (CPI). We then combine household survey data with the CPI components to construct a CPI index for the poorest and richest income quintiles with the view to assess the distributional impact of the pass-through. To undertake this analysis, the paper provides an update to the Global Monthly Retail Fuel Price Database, expanding the product coverage to premium and regular fuels, the time dimension to December 2020, and the sample to 190 countries. Three key findings stand out. First, the response of inflation to gasoline price shocks is smaller, but more persistent and broad-based in developing economies than in advanced economies. Second, we show that past studies using crude oil prices instead of retail fuel prices to estimate the pass-through to inflation significantly underestimate it. Third, while the purchasing power of all households declines as fuel prices increase, the distributional impact is progressive. But the progressivity phases out within 6 months after the shock in advanced economies, whereas it persists beyond a year in developing countries.

The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform

The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform
Author: Jakob Skovgaard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2018-08-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108416799

This comprehensive volume provides the first book-length account on the politics of fossil fuel subsidies. This title is also available as Open Access.

The Egyptian Food Subsidy System

The Egyptian Food Subsidy System
Author: Akhter U. Ahmed
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2001
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0896291219

The Egyptian Food Subsidy System: Structure, Performance, and Options for Reform evaluates the economic, political, and technical feasibility of reducing costs while improving or maintaining the welfare of the poor. The report addresses five questions: (1) How well does the present system target the poor? (2) How much leakage- the pilferage of subsidized foods in the distribution channel-occurs? (3) At what cost does the government transfer income to the needy? (4) How can subsidies be better targeted to the needy? And (5) What are politically feasible options for reform?