Scorecard for Subsidies : How Utility Subsidies Perform in Transition Economies
Unlike the poor in many developing countries, those in Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union, are highly connected to network utilities. During the early 1990s, it became clear that without subsidies, many households would have di...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Viewpoint |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/10/729354/scorecard-subsidies-utility-subsidies-perform-transition-economies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11413 |
| Summary: | Unlike the poor in many developing
countries, those in Central and Eastern Europe, and the
former Soviet Union, are highly connected to network
utilities. During the early 1990s, it became clear that
without subsidies, many households would have difficulty
paying their utility bills. Governments started to
experiment with various subsidy schemes. This note describes
the main schemes, scoring those, based on the following
criteria: the extent to which the poor are being reached,
i.e., coverage; the share of the subsidy that goes to the
poor, i.e., targeting; predictability of the benefit for the
poor; the extent of pricing distortions, and other
unintended side-effects; and, administration costs, and
difficulty. Moreover, the note provides a methodology for
governments designing subsidies, to decide which scheme is
likely to be the best for their country. |
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