Ending Food Subsidies: Nutritional, Welfare, and Budgetary Effects
研究发展中国家取消食品补贴对穷人营养和福利的影响，以摩洛哥为例提出补贴劣质食品可降低福利损失和预算支出。
Governments faced with growing budget deficits are cutting many social expenditures, including costly food subsidy that have provided benefits to the rich and poor alike. Because the poor spend a larger share of their income on food than do the rich, however, such cuts usually have negative distributional, welfare and nutritional effects. This article discusses the methodological issues in estimating the effects of price and tax reforms in developing countries. I apply a model that Deaton (1988) developed to estimate price elasticities from cross-section data, the only reliable and detailed data available in most developing countries. I use measures of both real income and nutrition to evaluate the effects of changes in the Moroccan food subsidy program. The analysis suggests that subsidies on inferior foods not consumed by the wealthy would reduce the welfare costs to the poor and limit the budgetary expenditures required. Copyright 1989 by Oxford University Press.