IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/20587_12.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Debt generators: the case of energy subsidies

In: The Sustainability of Asia’s Debt

Author

Listed:
  • Klaus Enders

Abstract

The chapter explores how energy policy has contributed to public (and external) debt during 2000-2019. Like many other developing countries, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have at times heavily subsidized energy, especially electricity for households, and kept production and distribution of energy largely with inefficient state-owned enterprises. As a result, frequent power outages in Pakistan have reduced growth, energy subsidies have made in both countries a sizable contribution to the primary deficit, and the assumption of energy-SOE debt by the government has been sizable in Pakistan and occurred also in Sri Lanka. Thus, energy policy has contributed substantially to debt, notably in Pakistan (a quarter of public debt at the end of 2019). Given the difficult outlook for debt sustainability and the prospect of low fuel prices post-COVID-19 pandemic, the case for moving to a fully market-based energy policy has never been stronger.

Suggested Citation

  • Klaus Enders, 2022. "Debt generators: the case of energy subsidies," Chapters, in: Benno Ferrarini & Marcelo M. Giugale & Juan J. Pradelli (ed.), The Sustainability of Asia’s Debt, chapter 12, pages 317-341, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:20587_12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781800883710/9781800883710.00022.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:elg:eechap:20587_12. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.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.