The Percolation of Public Expenditure: Food Subsidies and the Poor in India and the Philippines

Skikha Jha and Bharat Ramaswami

India Policy Forum, 2012, vol. 8, issue 1, 95-138

Abstract: The paper measures the percolation of food subsidy expenditures to the poor by defining a metric that takes into account the depth and width of income transfer. The metric is applied to food subsidy expenditures in India and the Philippines, which operate similar in-kind transfer schemes. The emphasis in the literature has been on reducing inclusion errors. While the metric takes this into account it also captures non-targeting leakages coming from excess costs and fraud. The principal finding is that percolation is poor in both countries and the payoffs from reducing non-targeting leakages are large relative to lowering inclusion errors.

Keywords: Food Subsidy; In-kind Transfer; Targeting; Excess Cost; India; Philippines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H22 I38 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Percolation of Public Expenditure: Food Subsidies and the Poor in India and Philippines (2015)
Working Paper: The Percolation of public expenditure: Food subsidies and the Poor in India and the Philippines (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nca:ncaerj:v:8:y:2012:i:2012-1:p:95-138

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