The Political Economy of Fuel Subsidies in Colombia

Colombia has made progress towards eliminating fuel and diesel subsidies and reducing discretionary spaces allowing for artificially low fuel prices, but challenges remain. Colombia has provided explicit and implicit subsidies to gasoline and diesel since 1983, costing the government up to 1.6% of G...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Garcia Romero, Helena
Other Authors: Calderon Etter, Laura
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Paris OECD Publishing 2013
Series:OECD Environment Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: OECD Books and Papers - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:Colombia has made progress towards eliminating fuel and diesel subsidies and reducing discretionary spaces allowing for artificially low fuel prices, but challenges remain. Colombia has provided explicit and implicit subsidies to gasoline and diesel since 1983, costing the government up to 1.6% of GDP. This paper discusses the political economy of fuel subsidies in the country to understand why reform has been so slow. It focuses on the groups benefitting from the subsidies and their political participation, as well as other economic impacts that have limited the political will to eliminate them. The Colombian case serves as an example of the difficulty of fully eliminating fuel subsidies once they are already established
Physical Description:18 p. 21 x 29.7cm