IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/udc/wpaper/wp253.html

A new look at the incidence of public transport subsidies: a case study of Santiago, Chile

Author

Listed:
  • Andrés Gómez-Lobo

Abstract

Most public transport subsidies in developing countries are justified on equity or social grounds. However, it is not clear how well current subsidies meet these objectives. In this paper we evaluate several public transport subsidies in the case of Santiago, Chile. This is an interesting case study because direct mean tested monetary transfers have been used in recent years to distribute public transport subsidies rather than use more traditional supply side sectoral subsidies. The results show that using the general welfare system to distribute transport subsidies performs much better than traditional supply side subsidies. The latter are very badly targeted and in some cases quite regressive. Together with some recent evidence from other developing country cities, the results of this paper imply that more effort needs to be placed on the analysis, design and implementation of social subsidies in the transport sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrés Gómez-Lobo, 2007. "A new look at the incidence of public transport subsidies: a case study of Santiago, Chile," Working Papers wp253, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp253
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.uchile.cl/uploads/publicacion/fc1ab4cf-a506-4d31-832a-8defbdab1515.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cropper, Maureen & Bhattacharya, Soma, 2007. "Public transport subsidies and affordability in Mumbai, India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4395, The World Bank.
    2. Engel, Eduardo M. R. A. & Galetovic, Alexander & Raddatz, Claudio E., 1999. "Taxes and income distribution in Chile: some unpleasant redistributive arithmetic," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 155-192, June.
    3. Kristin Komives & Vivien Foster & Jonathan Halpern & Quentin Wodon & Roohi Abdullah, 2008. "Water, Electricity, and the Poor : Who Benefits from Utility Subsidies?," World Bank Publications - Reports 11745, The World Bank Group.
    4. Alderman, Harold, 2002. "Subsidies as a social safety net: effectiveness and challenges," The Social Policy and Labor Discussion Paper Series 25299, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gandelman, Néstor & Serebrisky, Tomás & Suárez-Alemán, Ancor, 2019. "Household spending on transport in Latin America and the Caribbean: A dimension of transport affordability in the region," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Javier Asensio & Andrés Gómez-Lobo & Anna Matas, 2013. "How effective are policies to reduce gasoline consumption? Evaluating a quasi-natural experiment in Spain," Working Papers wpdea1303, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.

    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. Diego Angel-Urdinola & Quentin Wodon, 2007. "Do Utility Subsidies Reach the Poor? Framework and Evidence for Cape Verde, Sao Tome, and Rwanda," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(4), pages 1-7.
    2. Cristóbal Huneeus & Andrea Repetto, 2005. "The Dynamics of Earnings in Chile," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Jorge Restrepo & Andrea Tokman R. & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Edi (ed.),Labor Markets and Institutions, edition 1, volume 8, chapter 12, pages 383-410, Central Bank of Chile.
    3. Olufemi G. Onatunji, 2025. "Revisiting the Fiscal Policy–Income Inequality Nexus in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Does Institutional Quality Matter?," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 46(5), pages 3172-3188, July.
    4. Kalle Hirvonen & Giulia Mascagni & Keetie Roelen, 2018. "Linking taxation and social protection: Evidence on redistribution and poverty reduction in Ethiopia," International Social Security Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(1), pages 3-24, January.
    5. Torregrosa-Hetland, Sara, 2016. "Sticky Income Inequality In The Spanish Transition (1973-1990)," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 39-80, March.
    6. Ssewanyana, Sarah N., 2009. "Gender and incidence of indirect taxation: Evidence from Uganda," Research Series 54939, Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC).
    7. Bustos, Alvaro & Engel, Eduardo M. R. A. & Galetovic, Alexander, 2004. "Could higher taxes increase the long-run demand for capital? Theory and evidence for Chile," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 675-697, April.
    8. repec:wbk:wbpubs:7409 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Amadou Bassirou Diallo & Sudeshna Banerjee & Vivien Foster & Quentin Wodon, 2009. "Is Low Coverage of Modern Infrastructure Services in African Cities due to lack of Demand or lack of Supply ?," Post-Print hal-00405400, HAL.
    10. Roland Benabou, 2002. "Tax and Education Policy in a Heterogeneous-Agent Economy: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Growth and Efficiency?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 481-517, March.
    11. M. Govinda Rao & R. Kavita Rao, 2005. "Trends and Issues in Tax Policy and Reform in India," India Policy Forum, Global Economy and Development Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 2(1), pages 55-122.
    12. repec:wbk:wbpubs:6881 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Md Ashiq Iqbal & Towfiqul Islam Khan & Tazeen Tahsina, 2008. "Macroeconomic Implications of Social Safety Nets in the Context of Bangladesh," CPD Working Paper 75, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
    14. Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan & Wodon, Quentin, 2007. "Do local Governments maximize access rates to public services across areas?: A test based on marginal benefit incidence analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 242-260, May.
    15. Nasim Shah Shirazi & Muhammad Ilyas & Mehboob Ahmad, 2001. "Redistributive Effects of Fiscal Policy across the Income Groups in the Urban-Rural Areas of Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 40(4), pages 519-533.
    16. Luis Alberto Andrés & José Luis Guasch & Sebastián López Azumendi, 2011. "Regulation and Corporate Governance of State-owned Enterprises: Issues for Improved Efficiency and Competitiveness and Lessons for China," Chapters, in: Michael Faure & Xinzhu Zhang (ed.), Competition Policy and Regulation, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Kaufmann, Cornel & Schmid, Christian & Boes, Stefan, 2017. "Health insurance subsidies and deductible choice: Evidence from regional variation in subsidy schemes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 262-273.
    18. Facundo Alvaredo, 2007. "The Rich in Argentina over the twentieth century: From the Conservative Republic to the Peronist experience and beyond 1932-2004," Working Papers halshs-00588318, HAL.
    19. Tomás Serebrisky & Andrés Gómez‐Lobo & Nicolás Estupiñán & Ramón Muñoz‐Raskin, 2009. "Affordability and Subsidies in Public Urban Transport: What Do We Mean, What Can Be Done?," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(6), pages 715-739, January.
    20. Ernesto López-Morales & Nicolás Herrera & Matías Garretón, 2024. "Neoliberal urban segregation and property tax: A critical view of Santiago, Chile," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(6), pages 1820-1840, September.
    21. Chidambaram, Bhuvanachithra & Janssen, Marco A. & Rommel, Jens & Zikos, Dimitrios, 2014. "Commuters’ mode choice as a coordination problem: A framed field experiment on traffic policy in Hyderabad, India," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 9-22.
    22. Angel-Urdinola, Diego & Wodon, Quentin, 2008. "Assessing the Targeting Performance of Social Programs: Cape Verde," MPRA Paper 11072, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    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:udc:wpaper:wp253. 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: Mohit Karnani (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuclcl.html .

    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.