Better Household Surveys for Better Design of Infrastructure Subsidies
Reform of the water, electricity, and telecommunications sectors is gathering momentum in nearly all developing countries. Reform should include an assessment of whether subsidies are necessary and if so, how to design subsidies that reach their in...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/06/729349/better-household-surveys-better-design-infrastructure-subsidies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11429 |
| Summary: | Reform of the water, electricity, and
telecommunications sectors is gathering momentum in nearly
all developing countries. Reform should include an
assessment of whether subsidies are necessary and if so, how
to design subsidies that reach their intended beneficiaries
accurately and do not distort the market. A major challenge
for reforming governments is to build the capability to do
this fast enough for subsidy redesign to be incorporated in
sector reform. Clearly, it would save time to use existing
sources of information. Potentially, one of the most useful
sources is the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS)
survey. However, the LSMS questionnaires do not generate all
the information needed for subsidy design. Fortunately, with
a few simple and inexpensive changes, these surveys could be
made much more useful for the design of subsidies and for
devising policies that would give the poor better access to
infrastructure services. |
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