Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach

Through three decades of conflict, food rations delivered through the public distribution system (PDS) have remained the largest safety net among Iraq’s population. Reforming the PDS continues to be politically challenging, notwithstanding the system’s import dependence, economic distortions, and un...

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Main Authors:	Krishnan, Nandini, Olivieri, Sergio, Ramadan, Racha
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Taylor and Francis 2020
Subjects:	WELFARE FOOD RATIONS SAFETY NETS PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION FISCAL BURDEN FOOD SECURITY
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33146

id	okr-10986-33146
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-331462021-05-25T10:54:39Z Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach Krishnan, Nandini Olivieri, Sergio Ramadan, Racha WELFARE FOOD RATIONS SAFETY NETS PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION FISCAL BURDEN FOOD SECURITY Through three decades of conflict, food rations delivered through the public distribution system (PDS) have remained the largest safety net among Iraq’s population. Reforming the PDS continues to be politically challenging, notwithstanding the system’s import dependence, economic distortions, and unsustainable fiscal burden. The oil price decline of mid-2014 and recent efforts to rebuild and recover have put PDS reform back on the agenda. The government needs to find an effective way to deliver broad benefits from a narrow economic base reliant on oil. The study described here adopts a mixed demand approach to analyzing household consumption patterns for the purpose of assessing plausible reform scenarios and estimating the direction and scale of the associated welfare costs and transfers. It finds that household consumption of PDS items is relatively inelastic to changes in price, particularly among the poor. The results suggest that any one-shot reform will have sizeable adverse welfare impacts and will need to be preceded by a well-targeted compensation mechanism. To keep welfare constant, subsidy removal in urban areas, for example, would require the poorest and richest households to be compensated for, respectively, 74 per cent and nearly 40 per cent of their PDS expenditures. 2020-01-08T18:28:18Z 2020-01-08T18:28:18Z 2019-12-06 Journal Article The Journal of Development Studies 0022-0388 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33146 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank Taylor and Francis Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Middle East and North Africa Iraq
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	WELFARE FOOD RATIONS SAFETY NETS PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION FISCAL BURDEN FOOD SECURITY
spellingShingle	WELFARE FOOD RATIONS SAFETY NETS PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION FISCAL BURDEN FOOD SECURITY Krishnan, Nandini Olivieri, Sergio Ramadan, Racha Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach
geographic_facet	Middle East and North Africa Iraq
description	Through three decades of conflict, food rations delivered through the public distribution system (PDS) have remained the largest safety net among Iraq’s population. Reforming the PDS continues to be politically challenging, notwithstanding the system’s import dependence, economic distortions, and unsustainable fiscal burden. The oil price decline of mid-2014 and recent efforts to rebuild and recover have put PDS reform back on the agenda. The government needs to find an effective way to deliver broad benefits from a narrow economic base reliant on oil. The study described here adopts a mixed demand approach to analyzing household consumption patterns for the purpose of assessing plausible reform scenarios and estimating the direction and scale of the associated welfare costs and transfers. It finds that household consumption of PDS items is relatively inelastic to changes in price, particularly among the poor. The results suggest that any one-shot reform will have sizeable adverse welfare impacts and will need to be preceded by a well-targeted compensation mechanism. To keep welfare constant, subsidy removal in urban areas, for example, would require the poorest and richest households to be compensated for, respectively, 74 per cent and nearly 40 per cent of their PDS expenditures.
format	Journal Article
author	Krishnan, Nandini Olivieri, Sergio Ramadan, Racha
author_facet	Krishnan, Nandini Olivieri, Sergio Ramadan, Racha
author_sort	Krishnan, Nandini
title	Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach
title_short	Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach
title_full	Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach
title_fullStr	Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach
title_full_unstemmed	Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach
title_sort	estimating the welfare costs of reforming the iraq public distribution system : a mixed demand approach
publisher	Taylor and Francis
publishDate	2020
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33146
_version_	1764478089870442496

Estimating the Welfare Costs of Reforming the Iraq Public Distribution System : A Mixed Demand Approach

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