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. The results show that the distribution of subsidies a...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Araar, Abdelkrim
Other Authors: Verme, Paolo
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2016
Series:World Bank E-Library Archive
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 01824nmm a2200241 u 4500
001 EB002104771
003 EBX01000000000000001244861
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 221013 ||| eng
100 1 |a Araar, Abdelkrim 
245 0 0 |a A Comparative Analysis of Subsidy Reforms in the Middle East and North Africa Region  |h Elektronische Ressource  |c Araar, Abdelkrim 
260 |a Washington, D.C  |b The World Bank  |c 2016 
300 |a 34 p 
700 1 |a Araar, Abdelkrim 
700 1 |a Verme, Paolo 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b WOBA  |a World Bank E-Library Archive 
490 0 |a World Bank E-Library Archive 
028 5 0 |a 10.1596/1813-9450-7755 
856 4 0 |u http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-7755  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a 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