To analyze the optimal social insurance package, we set up a two-period life-cycle model with risky human capital investment, where the government has access to labor taxation, education subsidies and capital taxation. Social insurance is provided by redistributive labor taxation. Moreover, both education subsidies and capital taxation are used as catalyzers to facilitate social insurance by mi...

Subsidies in housing / Stephen K. Mayo. Includes bibliographical references. p. cm. (Sustainable Development Dept. Technical papers series ; SOC-112) " It complements the Operational Guidelines for Housing, and should be used together " —Presentation. Presentation In 1995 the Board of Executive Directors of the Inter-American Development Bank approved an amendment to the Operational Policy for ...

Using data from a two-year randomized pricing experiment in China, we study the impact and design of subsidy policies for weather insurance. Results show that subsidies are effective in boosting demand in the short-run but not in the longer term. Exploring the channels, we show that while subsidies increase the direct and social effects of payout experiences by enlarging coverage, they also dam...

Many developing countries use food-price subsidies or controls to improve nutrition. However, subsidizing goods on which households spend a high proportion of their budget can create large wealth effects. Consumers may then substitute towards foods with higher non-nutritional attributes (e.g., taste), but lower nutritional content per unit of currency, weakening or perhaps even reversing the su...

In this paper we estimate the effect of agricultural electricity subsidies in India on groundwater extraction and agricultural output. Our empirical approach exploits changes in state electricity prices over time controlling for aggregate annual shocks and fixed district unobservables. Electricity subsidies meaningfully increase groundwater extraction, where the implied extensive margin price e...

Ecosystems are differentially open to subsidies of energy, material and organisms. This fundamental ecosystem attribute has long been recognized but the influence of this property on community regulation has not been investigated. We propose that this environmental attribute may explain variation in the strength of trophic cascades among ecosystems. Simply because of gravity, we should predict ...

Significant government support for biofuels has led to rapid growth in U.S. ethanol production and research to develop more advanced biofuels. In this paper we construct a general equilibrium, open economy model that captures the rationale typically invoked to justify government intervention in this setting: to alleviate the environmental impact of energy consumption and to decrease U.S. energy...

Malaria kills over a million people each year. The loss of chloroquine due to the spread of parasite resistance is largely responsible for the resurgence of malaria. A new class of antimalarial drugs called artemisinins are available, but are unaffordable to most people in malaria-endemic countries and may quickly face the same fate as chloroquine unless they are combined with a partner drug. S...

This paper makes an analysis of subsidies in Chile’s public utilities. Rates rebalancing have practically eliminated cross subsidies, and current programs are funded from the national budget. Over the last decade in particular, significant efforts have been made to extend public services to rural populations, and a consumption subsidy for potable water currently benefits 17% of the population. ...