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Many governments use price and tax subsidization to meet social protection objectives in lieu of, or in addition to, direct income transfers. Such subsidies may be perceived as influencing behavior to further other socially desirable policies. For example, the price response induced by lowering the price of schooling or key food items will both lower the cost of living for the beneficiaries and...

Ireland's private health insurance market provides primarily supplementary health insurance for hospital services, operating alongside a public hospital system to which residents have universal access entitlements, subject to some copayments for those without a medical card. The State subsidises the purchase of private health insurance through measures including tax relief on premiums and not c...

This paper studies the effectiveness of different types of cohesion policies with respect to convergence of regions. A two-region agentbased macroeconomic model is used to analyze short-, mediumand long-term effects of policies improving human capital and fostering adoption of technologies in lagging regions. With fully integrated labor markets the human capital policy positively affects the ec...

SYNOPSIS: Basic changes in market regulation have provided an opportunity for low-income consumers in Zimbabwe to improve their diets and real incomes, even while macro-economic adjustments to remove unsustainable food subsidies were being implemented. This synthesis also shows how information on consumer preferences among income groups can be used to make markets work better for BACKGROUND: In...

Professional sports teams receive large public subsidies for new facility construction. Empirical research suggests that these subsidies cannot be justified by tangible or intangible economic benefits. We develop a model of bargaining between local governments and teams over subsidies that includes league expansion decisions. The model features loss aversion by fans that captures lost utility w...

Distributing subsidized health products through existing health infrastructure could substantially and cost-effectively improve health in sub-Saharan Africa. There is, however, widespread concern that poor governance – in particular, limited health worker accountability – seriously undermines the effectiveness of subsidy programs. We audit targeted bednet distribution programs to quantify the e...

Global inequities in access to pharmaceutical products exist between rich and poor countries because of market and government failures as well as huge income differences. Multiple policies are required to address this global drug gap for three categories of pharmaceutical products: essential drugs, new drugs, and yet-to-be-developed drugs. Policies should combine "push" approaches of subsidies ...

We explore the effectiveness of matching grants when lower levels of government can expropriate some of the funds for other uses. Using data on the Medicaid Disproportionate Share program, we identify states that were most able to expropriate funds. Payments to public hospitals in these states were systematically diverted and had no significant impact on patient mortality. Payments that were no...