The Magnitude and Distribution of Fuel Subsidies: Evidence from Bolivia, Ghana, Jordan, Mali, and Sri Lanka

By R. Gillingham, David Newhouse, David Coady, Kangni Kpodar, M. El-Said, Paulo A. Medas. Social Science Research Network, 2006

193 citations recorded by the source corpus.

With the recent jump in world oil prices, the issue of petroleum product pricing has become increasingly important in developing countries. Reflecting a reluctance of many governments to pass these price increases onto energy users, energy price subsidies are absorbing an increasing share of scarce public resources. This paper identifies the issues that need to be discussed when analyzing the fiscal and social costs of fuel subsidies. Using examples from analyses recently undertaken for five countries, it also identifies the magnitude of consumer subsidies and their fiscal implications. The results of the analysis show that - in all of these countries - energy subsidies have significant social and fiscal costs and are badly targeted.

Subfields: Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b4e21cf8fc267e64511daa6cf6534d605cd29130

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In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

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Citations in the corpus

• Demand for cooking fuels in a developing country: To what extent do taste and preferences matter? (2011, background): “Recent studies on fuel policies in Ghana have used the GLSS4 as well (e.g., see Coady et al., 2006; Akpalu and Robinson, 2009).”
• The Unequal Benefits of Fuel Subsidies: A Review of Evidence for Developing Countries (2012, methodology): “11 See Federico, Daniel, and Bingham (2001) for a more detailed discussion of smoothing mechanisms.”
• Commitment to Equity Assessment (CEQ): Estimating the Incidence of Social Spending, Subsidies and Taxes Handbook (2013, methodology): “These indirect effects are often larger than the direct effects of the fuel subsidy (Coady et al., 2006; Arze del Granado, Coady, and Gillingham, 2012), and can be estimated by using input-output (IO) tables.”
• Resource Rents, Redistribution, and Halving Global Poverty: The Resource Dividend (2011, background): “" Coady et al. (2006) show that fuel subsidies are typically regressive; they and Bacon and Kojima (2006) discuss the politics of removing fuel subsidies more generally.”