Is the elimination of food subsidies the right policy to address Lebanon’s public finance crisis?

Makdissi, Paul and Seif Edine, Mohamad (2020): Is the elimination of food subsidies the right policy to address Lebanon’s public finance crisis?

Abstract

In this paper, we use a positional dominance approach to assess the desirability of eliminating food subsidies in Lebanon. The analysis is based on aggregate information from the 2004/2005 National Survey of Households Living Conditions. We use this aggregate information on expenditure patterns to reconstruct rough estimates of s-concentration curves and efficiency-cost ratio sets. Evidences suggest that the Lebanese government should probably find other avenues to reduce the fiscal deficit.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Taxation, inequality, Lebanon
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue > H23 - Externalities ; Redistributive Effects ; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty > I31 - General Welfare, Well-Being

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