IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/rmeecf/v16y2020i2p17n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is the Elimination of Food Subsidies the Right Policy to Address Lebanon’s Public Finance Crisis?

Author

Listed:
  • Makdissi Paul

    (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada)

  • Seif Edine Mohamad

    (Budget Directorate, Government of Lebanon, Ministry of Finance, Beirut, Lebanon)

Abstract

In this paper, we use a positional dominance approach to assess the desirability of eliminating food subsidies in Lebanon. The analysis is based on aggregate information from the 2004 to 2005 National Survey of Households Living Conditions. We use this aggregate information on expenditure patterns to reconstruct rough estimates of s-concentration curves and efficiency-cost ratio sets. Evidences suggest that the Lebanese government should probably find other avenues to reduce the fiscal deficit.

Suggested Citation

  • Makdissi Paul & Seif Edine Mohamad, 2020. "Is the Elimination of Food Subsidies the Right Policy to Address Lebanon’s Public Finance Crisis?," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 1-17, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rmeecf:v:16:y:2020:i:2:p:17:n:3
    DOI: 10.1515/rmeef-2020-0016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/rmeef-2020-0016
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/rmeef-2020-0016?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yitzhaki, Shlomo & Slemrod, Joel, 1991. "Welfare Dominance: An Application to Commodity Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 480-496, June.
    2. Nisreen Salti & Jad Chaaban, 2010. "On The Poverty And Equity Implications Of A Rise In The Value Added Tax: A Microeconomic Simulation For Lebanon," Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(01), pages 121-138.
    3. Lydia Assouad, 2019. "Rethinking the Lebanese economic miracle: The extreme concentration of income and wealth in Lebanon," PSE Working Papers halshs-02160275, HAL.
    4. Jean-Yves Duclos & Paul Makdissi & Abdelkrim Araar, 2009. "Pro-Poor Tax reforms, with an Application to Mexico," Working Papers 0907E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    5. Chateauneuf, Alain & Gajdos, Thibault & Wilthien, Pierre-Henry, 2002. "The Principle of Strong Diminishing Transfer," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 311-333, April.
    6. Nisreen Salti & Jad Chaaban, 2010. "On the Poverty and Equity Implications of a Rise in the Value Added Tax," Middle East Development Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 121-138, January.
    7. Jean-Yves Duclos & Paul Makdissi & Quentin Wodon, 2008. "Socially Improving Tax Reforms," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1505-1537, November.
    8. Paul Makdissi & Stéphane Mussard, 2008. "Analyzing the impact of indirect tax reforms on rank-dependent social welfare functions: a positional dominance approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(3), pages 385-399, April.
    9. Lydia Assouad, 2019. "Rethinking the Lebanese economic miracle: The extreme concentration of income and wealth in Lebanon," Working Papers halshs-02160275, HAL.
    10. Marc F. Bellemare, 2015. "Rising Food Prices, Food Price Volatility, and Social Unrest," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 1-21.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wasiu Adekunle Are, 2012. "Poverty-Reducing Directions of Indirect Marginal Tax Reforms in Ireland," Working Papers 201230, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    2. Paul Makdissi & Stéphane Mussard, 2009. "Rank-Dependent Measures of Bi-Polarization and Marginal Tax Reforms," Working Papers 09-29, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Dec 2009.
    3. MAKDISSI Paul & MUSSARD Stéphane, 2006. "Between-Group Transfers and Poverty-Reducing Tax Reforms," IRISS Working Paper Series 2006-10, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    4. Paul Makdissi & Stéphane Mussard, 2008. "Analyzing the impact of indirect tax reforms on rank-dependent social welfare functions: a positional dominance approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(3), pages 385-399, April.
    5. Jean-Yves Duclos & Paul Makdissi & Abdelkrim Araar, 2009. "Pro-Poor Tax reforms, with an Application to Mexico," Working Papers 0907E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    6. Mickaël Beaud & Thierry Blayac & Patrice Bougette & Soufiane Khoudmi & Philippe Mahenc & Stéphane Mussard, 2013. "Estimation du coût d'opportunité des fonds publics pour l'économie française," Working Papers halshs-01077141, HAL.
    7. Mario Fortin & Andre Leclerc & Jean-Baptiste Nesmy, 2006. "L’impact des opérations transactionnelles sur la croissance de la productivité dans le secteur bancaire," Cahiers de recherche 06-01, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    8. Luis Huesca & Arturo Robles Valencia & Abdelkrim Araar, 2015. "Progressivity and decomposition of VAT in the Mexican border, 2014," Estudios Regionales en Economía, Población y Desarrollo. Cuadernos de Trabajo de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez. 25, Cuerpo Académico 41 de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, revised 01 Jan 2015.
    9. David Madden, 2015. "The Poverty Effects Of A ‘Fat‐Tax’ In Ireland," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 104-121, January.
    10. Paul Makdissi & Stéphane Mussard, 2008. "Decomposition of s-concentration curves," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1312-1328, November.
    11. Harun Abubakar Siddique, "undated". "The Lebanon crisis from international political economy perspective," Review of Socio - Economic Perspectives 202202, Reviewsep.
    12. Araar, Abdelkrim & Dissou, Yazid & Duclos, Jean-Yves, 2011. "Household incidence of pollution control policies: A robust welfare analysis using general equilibrium effects," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 227-243, March.
    13. Dorothée Boccanfuso & Antonio Estache & Luc Savard, 2008. "Distributional impact of global warming environmental policies: A survey," Cahiers de recherche 08-14, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    14. Yaru, Mohammed Aminu & Adisa-Ohiaka, Ubaydah, 2022. "Indirect Taxation and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Empirical Evidence from Panel Data Analysis," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 10(5), December.
    15. Garcia-Diaz, Rocio & Sosa-Rub, Sandra G., 2011. "Analysis of the distributional impact of out-of-pocket health payments: Evidence from a public health insurance program for the poor in Mexico," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 707-718, July.
    16. Warwick, Ross & Harris, Tom & Phillips, David & Goldman, Maya & Jellema, Jon & Inchauste, Gabriela & Goraus-Tańska, Karolina, 2022. "The redistributive power of cash transfers vs VAT exemptions: A multi-country study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    17. Zsombor Cseres-Gergely & Gyorgy Molnar & Tibor Szabo, 2017. "Expenditure responses, policy interventions and heterogeneous welfare effects in Hungary during the 2000s," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1704, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    18. Jean-Yves Duclos & Paul Makdissi & Abdelkrim Araar, 2014. "Pro-poor indirect tax reforms, with an application to Mexico," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(1), pages 87-118, February.
    19. Urakawa, Kunio & Oshio, Takashi, 2010. "Comparing marginal commodity tax reforms in Japan and Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 579-592, December.
    20. Saikou Amadou Diallo & Paul Makdissi, 2008. "Est-ce que les subsides d'électricité diminuent la pauvreté en Guinée ?," Working Papers 0811E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inequality; Lebanon; taxation; H23; I31;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:rmeecf:v:16:y:2020:i:2:p:17:n:3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.