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...

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Main Authors:	Araar, Abdelkrim, Verme, Paolo
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:	energy subsidies food subsidies
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

id	okr-10986-24836
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-248362021-04-23T14:04:27Z A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region Araar, Abdelkrim Verme, Paolo energy subsidies food subsidies 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. 2016-08-09T19:10:29Z 2016-08-09T19:10:29Z 2016-07 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26584689/comparative-analysis-subsidy-reforms-middle-east-north-africa-region http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24836 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7755 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Middle East and North Africa Middle East North Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	energy subsidies food subsidies
spellingShingle	energy subsidies food subsidies Araar, Abdelkrim Verme, Paolo A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region
geographic_facet	Middle East and North Africa Middle East North Africa
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7755
description	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.
format	Working Paper
author	Araar, Abdelkrim Verme, Paolo
author_facet	Araar, Abdelkrim Verme, Paolo
author_sort	Araar, Abdelkrim
title	A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region
title_short	A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region
title_full	A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region
title_fullStr	A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region
title_full_unstemmed	A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region
title_sort	comparative analysis of subsidy reforms in the middle east and north africa region
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2016
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26584689/comparative-analysis-subsidy-reforms-middle-east-north-africa-region http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24836
_version_	1764457781725757440

A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region

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