— Across sub-Saharan Africa agricultural subsidy programs have again become a common strategy for combatting rural poverty, increasing agricultural production, and reducing food insecurity. Despite a large literature examining subsidies’ effects on output and welfare, little is known about their political effects. This paper examines Malawi’s Agricultural Input Subsidy Programme, one of the lar...

Egypt's food subsidies (in 1996/97 5.5 percent of government expenditures or US$1.1 bn.) cover rationed oil and sugar (23 percent of subsidy cost) and unrationed bread and flour (77 percent). The subsidies enhance food security but are nontargeted and have substantial leakages. This paper uses a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate the short-run effects of alternative foodsubs...

Adulteration of automobile fuels, especially petrol and diesel is a rampant malpractice in India. The most commonly found forms are—mixing kerosene in diesel and diesel in petrol. With the rising prices of fuel and the subsidy on kerosene, getting away with even 10-15% adulteration is immensely profitable. While less than 10% adulteration is financially unattractive, more than 30% is easily det...

Can subsidies promote Pareto-optimum coordination? We found that partially subsidizing the cooperative actions for 2 out of 6 players in a laboratory coordination game usually produced better coordination and higher total payoffs both with deterministic and stochastic payoffs. Not only were the subsidized players more likely to cooperate (choose the Pareto-optimum action), but the unsubsidized ...

We use lab experiments to study policies that address common pool resource overuse. We look at a price mechanism, specifically a Pigouvian subsidy, and four non-price interventions. The non-price policies are information alone, information with a normative message, communication alone, and normative messages with communication allowed. In all experiment sessions, no intervention occurs in the f...

Developing countries have embarked on the promotion of “ICT access for all” through subsidized Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially in underserviced areas of such countries. The main aim of the “ICT access for all” is to extend the communication services to the large areas of underserviced regions through subsidized communication services. In some instances, subsidies m...

This study analyzes the efficiency of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of a national technology innovation research and development (R&D) program. In particular, an empirical analysis is presented that aims to answer the following question: "Is there a difference in the efficiency between R&D collaboration types and between government R&D subsidy sizes?" Methodologically, the efficienc...

We consider a closed, constant-technology, capital-resource economy with resource stock amenity value, which would otherwise aim for conventionally, PV-optimal development that maximises the present value of utility using a constant discount rate. In this economy, we calculate the decentralised policy instruments needed to achieve continuously zero net investment, and hence (by Hartwick’s rule)...

This paper is a brief for the introduction of a subsidy to any qualified firm for its use of low-wage employees as a means to reduce the unemployment and raise the pay of disadvantaged workers. There would be a case for such a wage subsidy in all the advanced market economies, and certainly the American one, regardless of recent trends. The case has grown stronger, however, with the worsening o...