A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region
The paper compares the distribution of energy and food subsidies across households and the impact of subsidy reforms on household welfare in the Middle East and North Africa region. The analysis uses a unified model and harmonized household data. T...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26584689/comparative-analysis-subsidy-reforms-middle-east-north-africa-region http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24836 |
| Summary: | The paper compares the distribution of
energy and food subsidies across households and the impact
of subsidy reforms on household welfare in the Middle East
and North Africa region. The analysis uses a unified model
and harmonized household data. The results show that the
distribution of subsidies and the welfare effects of subsidy
reforms are quite diverse across countries and products.
Energy subsidies tend to be pro-rich in terms of absolute
amounts, but tend to be more important for the poor in terms
of expenditure shares. Instead, food subsidies are larger
for the poor in absolute and relative terms. These findings
do not apply everywhere, and the scale of these phenomena
are different across countries and products. The welfare
effect of a 30 percent reduction in subsidies can be
important, especially considering the cumulated effect
across products, but the cost of compensating the loss in
welfare for the poor is generally low compared with the
budget benefits of decreasing subsidies. |
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