Affordability and Subsidies in Public Urban Transport : What Do We Mean, What Can Be Done?

Estupiñ ; á ; n, Nicolá ; s ; Gó ; mez-Lobo, André ; s ; Muñ ; oz-Raskin, Ramó ; n ; Serebrisky, Tomá ; s

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCIDENTS;    AFFORDABILITY INDEX;    AFFORDABILITY INDICES;    AFFORDABLE TRANSPORT;    AIR;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4440
RP-ID  :  WPS4440

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Subsidy policies on public urbantransport have been adopted ubiquitously. In both developedand developing countries, subsidies are implemented to maketransport more affordable. Despite their widespreadimplementation, there are virtually no quantitativeassessments of their distributional incidence, making itimpossible to determine if these instruments are pro-poor.This paper reviews the arguments used to justify subsidypolicies in public urban transport. Using different tools toquantitatively evaluate the incidence and distributiveimpacts of subsidy policy options, the paper analyzes thefindings of a series of research papers that study urbanpublic transport subsidy policies in developed anddeveloping countries. The available evidence indicates thatcurrent public urban transport subsidy policies do not makethe poorest better off. Supply-side subsidies are, for themost part, neutral or regressive; while demand-sidesubsidies perform better-although many of them do notimprove income distribution. Considering that the policyobjective is to improve the welfare of the poorest, it isimperative to move away from supply-side subsidies towardsdemand-side subsidies and to integrate transport socialconcerns into wider poverty alleviation efforts, whichinclude the possibility of channeling subsidies throughmonetary transfer systems or through other transferinstruments (food subsidies, health services and educationfor the poor). The general conclusion of the paper is thatmore effort should be devoted to improve the targetingproperties of public urban transport subsidies usingmeans-testing procedures to ensure a more pro-poor incidenceof subsidies.