Central American countries spend approximately one percent of their aggregate gross domestic product subsidizing residential electricity consumption. This amount is comparable with what these countries spend on education and social assistance. The pressure that electricity subsidies exert on government budgets is particularly high when international energy prices rise. Electricity subsidies also provide perverse incentives for the overconsumption of electricity as households do not pay the true cost of their consumption, which in turn reduces incentives to increase energy efficiency. This book answers key questions regarding residential electricity subsidies in Central America. In particular: How do the subsidy mechanisms function in each country? What are their fiscal costs? Are these subsidies good value for the money? How efficient are subsidies in reaching households in need, and what drives this efficiency? What are the reform options? The main message of this book is that there is considerable scope for improving the efficiency of electricity subsidies in Central America by better targeting them to low-income households. The book shows that electricity subsidies help reduce the burden of electricity costs on the lowest-income groups. However, the existing electricity subsidy schemes are very inefficient at targeting resources to low-income households, with the majority of government spending going to higher-income households. Indeed, most countries in the region have the opportunity to significantly reduce the fiscal costs of electricity subsidies without imposing significant costs on households, particularly poor households. Given the limited fiscal space in the region and the major needs of the countries in terms of social services and physical infrastructure, this study seeks to provide Central American policymakers with the analytical foundations necessary to assess the costs and benefits of their electricity subsidy mechanisms, and design effective reform strategies that reflect their unique circumstances and policy priorities.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable. This paper explores the challenges of replacing generalized price subsidies with more equitable social safety net instruments, including the short-term inflationary effects, and describes the features of successful subsidy reforms.

Energy subsidies are aimed at protecting consumers, however, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. This book provides the most comprehensive estimates of energy subsidies currently available for 176 countries and an analysis of “how to do” energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights from 22 country case studies undertaken by the IMF staff and analyses carried out by other institutions.

This volume presents eight good practice examples of problem-driven political economy analysis conducted at the World Bank, and reflect what the Bank has so far been able to achieve in mainstreaming this approach into its operations and policy dialogue.

The reform of energy subsidies is an important but challenging issue for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. There is a relatively large theoretical and empirical literature on this issue. While this paper relies on that literature, too, it tailors its discussion to SSA countries to respond to the following questions: Why it is important to reduce energy subsidies? What are the difficulties involved in energy subsidy reform? How best can a subsidy reform be implemented? This paper uses various sources of information on SSA countries: quantitative assessments, surveys, and individual (but standardized) case studies.

This paper reviews evidence on the impact of fuel subsidy reform on household welfare in developing countries. On average, the burden of subsidy reform is neutrally distributed across income groups; a $0.25 decrease in the per liter subsidy results in a 6 percent decrease in income for all groups. More than half of this impact arises from the indirect impact on prices of other goods and services consumed by households. Fuel subsidies are a costly approach to protecting the poor due to substantial benefit leakage to higher income groups. In absolute terms, the top income quintile captures six times more in subsidies than the bottom. Issues that need to be addressed when undertaking subsidy reform are also discussed, including the need for a new approach to fuel pricing in many countries.

This paper addresses the problems of defining and measuring government subsidies, examines why and how government subsidies are used as a fiscal policy tool, assesses their economic effects, appraises international empirical evidence on government subsidies, and offers options for their reform. Recent international trends in government subsidy expenditure are analyzed for the 16-year period from 1975 to 1990, using general government subsidy data for 60 countries from the System of National Accounts (SNA) and central government expenditure on subsidies and other current transfers for 68 countries from Government Finance Statistics (GFS). The paper reviews major policy options for subsidy reform, focusing on ways to improve the cost-effectiveness of subsidy programs.