metadata: authors: 0: author: Atamanov,Aziz
1: author: Jellema,Jon Robbert
2: author: Serajuddin,Umar
count: Jordan
docna: 0: docna: Energy subsidies reform in Jordan : welfare
            implications of different scenarios
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Oil Refining & Gas Industry,Disability,Services & Transfers to Poor,Energy Policies & Economics,Economic Assistance,Access of Poor to Social Services,Energy Demand,Energy and Environment,Energy and Mining,Inequality
teratopic: Poverty Reduction,Social Protections and Labor
abstracts: cdata!: Facing a fiscal crisis, Jordan initiated
            substantial petroleum subsidy reforms in 2012. The
            government has also long contemplated how to cut electricity
            subsidies, which surpass the fiscal burdens imposed by the
            petroleum subsidies. This paper estimates the impacts of the
            2012 petroleum subsidies reform on household welfare and
            government revenues. It also simulates the distributional
            and fiscal impacts from ending subsidies in the electricity
            sector, where the pricing structure is more complex than
            petroleum prices. The paper looks at the direct and indirect
            impacts of reform. Moreover, the paper discusses the
            political economy considerations of reform. While the full
            removal of petroleum subsidies would have increased poverty,
            the compensatory cash transfer program the government
            instituted is estimated to have fully offset the negative
            impact for the poorer population. The impact of reforms in
            the electricity sector will depend significantly on the
            implementation method chosen. A flat increase of tariffs
            toward cost recovery will put a huge burden on the poorest
            households. However, a progressive increase in tariffs will
            generate substantial savings for the government, even with
            compensatory mechanisms to mitigate the strong negative
            impact on the vulnerable population. The immediate
            compensation of the losers from reform appears to be a
            crucial factor in the successful implementation of reforms
            in Jordan.
geo_reg_key: 517202,517191
repnme: repnme: Energy subsidies reform in Jordan : welfare
            implications of different scenarios
display_title: Energy subsidies reform in Jordan :
            welfare implications of different scenarios
listing_relative_url: /research/2015/06/24649395/energy-subsidies-reform-jordan-welfare-implications-different-scenarios
topicv3: Energy and Extractives m1326595 507,Poverty m1326687 695,Power and Electricity Sector m1327094 515,Cash Transfers m1327437 1608,Petroleum Industry m1583790 4710
publishtoextweb_dt: 2015-06-17T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Poverty Reduction,Social Protections and Labor
no_of_pages: 25
author_keys: 0: author_key: 1182029
1: author_key: 1058241
2: author_key: 539942
model_extractions: WPS7313 Policy Research Working Paper 7313 Energy Subsidies Reform in Jordan Welfare Implications of Different Scenarios _Aziz Atamanov Jon Jellema Umar Serajuddin_ Poverty Global Practice Group June 2015
Policy Research Working Paper 7313

# **Abstract**

Facing a fiscal crisis, Jordan initiated substantial petroleum subsidy reforms in 2012. The government has also long contemplated how to cut electricity subsidies, which surpass the fiscal burdens imposed by the petroleum subsidies. This paper estimates the impacts of the 2012 petroleum subsidies reform on household welfare and government revenues. It also simulates the distributional and fiscal impacts from ending subsidies in the electricity sector, where the pricing structure is more complex than petroleum prices. The paper looks at the direct and indirect impacts of reform. Moreover, the paper discusses the political economy considerations of reform. While the full removal of petroleum subsidies would have increased poverty, the compensatory cash transfer program the government instituted is estimated to have fully offset the negative impact for the poorer population. The impact of reforms in the electricity sector will depend significantly on the implementation method chosen. A flat increase of tariffs toward cost recovery will put a huge burden on the poorest households. However, a progressive increase in tariffs will generate substantial savings for the government, even with compensatory mechanisms to mitigate the strong negative impact on the vulnerable population. The immediate compensation of the losers from reform appears to be a crucial factor in the successful implementation of reforms in Jordan.

This paper is a product of the Poverty Global Practice Group. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at userajuddin@ worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# **Energy Subsidies Reform in Jordan: Welfare Implications of Different Scenarios**

Aziz Atamanov, Jon Jellema and Umar Serajuddin* JEL codes: D1, D3, D4, D6, H2, H4, H6, I3, O2.

Key words: Jordan, subsidies, energy, income distribution.

* World Bank, Washington DC. Email: <u>aatamanov@worldbank.org, jrjellema@gmail.com, userajuddin@worldbank.org.</u>

** The authors acknowledge useful comments and suggestions from Paolo Verme, Masami Kojima, Eric Le Borgne, Ferhat Esen, Daniel Camos Daurella, and Husam Mohamed Beides. The authors would like to thank Ambar Narayan and Ferid Belhaj for guidance and advice. We are grateful to Mukallad Omari, Zein Soufan, and Orouba Al Sabbagh of the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC) of the Government of Jordan (GoJ) for helpful discussions and for sharing data. All simulations have been carried out with SUBSIM (see <u>www.subsim.org).</u>
# **Introduction**

As the Arab Spring unfolded and political unrest spread across the Arab world, Jordan faced an adverse economy as well. Fundamental to the economic challenge was high and rising energy prices, already heavily subsidized for consumers. With the government intent on staving off emerging political unrest through a series of measures, buffering consumers from increased energy prices being a key action, fiscal costs mounted. By 2012, subsidies on petroleum products alone were about 2.8 percent of GDP and 8.8 percent of government expenditures. At the same time, political unrest disrupted the supply of natural gas from the Arab Republic of Egypt and Jordan abruptly had to switch to using imported oil products (heavy fuel oil and diesel) to produce electricity. Consequently, the cost of producing electricity increased several fold. As the increased cost was not passed on to the consumers, the National Electric Power Company (NEPCO), bore all the increases in fuel prices and accumulated debt as a result. At approximately 17 percent of government expenditures and 5.5 percent of GDP in 2011, this was twice the amount of the petroleum subsidies.

Even for a country with a history of universal subsidies, the suddenness and immensity of the fiscal burden was remarkable. Facing strong fiscal pressures of the unsustainably large subsidies, in November 2012 the government decided to remove the subsidies for gasoline (high quality), diesel and kerosene and reduce the subsidies on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). To compensate households for these large price increases, the government decided to simultaneously introduce a large scale cash transfer program to households earning less than 10,000 JD a year, covering about two-thirds of Jordanian households. This was a major policy decision carried out in the middle of a volatile political atmosphere. All the same, reform efforts were incomplete and the government continues to contemplate how to reduce electricity subsidies, which surpass the fiscal burdens imposed by the petroleum subsidies. Much like the 2012 petroleum subsidies reform, the government could implement far reaching reforms by reducing electricity subsidies and combining it with a targeted cash transfer. Yet, it has been difficult for the government to put in place such a measure, despite only recently having removed petroleum subsidies quite successfully.

One of the reasons for the hesitation in further reforms is perhaps that the question of “who gets what, when, and how”<sup>1</sup> from reform has no clear answer; the costs and benefits of potential reforms are not well understood, especially for the case of electricity where the pricing may often appear opaque even to policy makers. This paper sheds light on the distributional and fiscal impacts of reform options, focusing on petroleum and electricity subsidy reforms. Moreover, understanding the impacts of the petroleum subsidy reforms can inform alternative reform options for electricity subsidies.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 traces the evolution of subsidies in Jordan in recent times. The distributional impacts of reform would depend on how important the subsidized items are to consumers in terms of their expenditures on those items. Section 2 discusses this question from the perspective of richer and poorer households. The distributional impacts of reform would of course not only depend on how much consumers spend on the subsidized items but also on the extent of price changes. Sections 3 and 4 simulate direct and indirect impacts of potential reform scenarios across the income distribution. From this discussion, in section 5 the document moves onto considering how reforms are weighed down by vexing

> 1 Quote taken from Harold Laswell’s seminal work titled _Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How_ .

2
political economy constraints. In MENA countries, universal subsidies have been in place as part of the government’s role in ensuring stability in the lives of the people and doing away with them is not straightforward. Finally, section 6 concludes.

# **1. Evolution of subsidies**

Like other countries in the MENA region, the Government of Jordan has traditionally provided universal subsidies to consumers and producers of petroleum products, electricity, water, and food. With the government continuing to insulate the population from the recent large spikes in global commodities and food prices, the subsidies experienced sharp increases. In 2005, the government was spending over JD 600 million on food and oil subsidies alone, about 17 percent of total government expenditures. While the magnitude of the subsidies rose and fell with international price changes, they continued to remain a challenge for the government.

Jordan’s consumer subsidies have a long history with food price subsidies dating back to the 1960s. Starting with wheat and sugar, over time a host of food items were subsidized. By the early 1990s most food prices were liberalized with the exception of wheat, which has continued to be subsidized despite occasional attempts at reform. The government’s attempt at removing the wheat subsidies (with prices almost trebling from JD0.075 per kilogram to JD 0.25 per kilogram), resulted in widespread social discontent and erupted in ‘bread riots’ in 1996 (Lamis and Schwedler 1996). While the increase was scaled back, the retail price almost doubled in 1996, and was subsequently accompanied with a cash transfer program to compensate the poor. Since then, however, wheat prices have remained fixed in nominal terms. Consumers today receive water at subsidized rates as well. In this section, however, we focus on petroleum products and electricity because of their relative importance to Jordanian households and the government.

## **1.1 Subsidies on Petroleum Products**

Before 2003, Jordan received oil from Iraq at below market prices and the government passed on (part of) these savings to consumers. After 2003, Jordan lost this source of cheap oil and this coincided with increases in international prices (World Bank 2009). Between 2002 and 2008 world energy prices increased by more than threefold while world food prices doubled (Figure 1). The government was forced to increase prices in 2005 and again in 2006, but it still kept prices below international levels. Consequently, in 2005, government spending on petroleum subsidies alone reached 5.8 percent of GDP (Coady _et al_ 2006).

In the face of serious fiscal strain, the government phased out cash subsidies on petroleum products between 2008 and 2010. This was the first time prices were at the international level (LPG was still subsidized partially) and a rapid drop in petroleum subsidies ensued – from 2.5 percent of GDP in 2007 to 0.3 percent in 2009. At the same time the government compensated households in the form of salary increases for public and private sector employees and military personnel. At the very end of 2010, however, the government discontinued the monthly petroleum price adjustments as oil prices reached US$90 a barrel and reintroduced petroleum subsidies. By 2012, petroleum subsidies were at 2.8 percent of GDP or close to 9 percent of the government budget.

3
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end of 2010 the company reported a debt of over 200 m. JD. However, due to disruptions of gas supply from Egypt in 2011, the cost of producing electricity in Jordan increased by several fold as producers had to switch to the use of expensive diesel and heavy fuel oil, of which share in fuel for power mix reached 80 percent in 2012 (from 29 percent in 2010). As the increased costs were not passed onto the final consumers, NEPCO assumed all the costs of increases in fuel prices and began running monthly deficits of an estimated 100 m. JD, which amounted to JD 1.2 billion annually (5.5 percent of GDP in 2011). This in turn has placed an enormous fiscal burden on the government, and this is one of the main reasons the government has stated its intention to follow fiscal consolidation plans in the context of an IMF SBA (Stand-byArrangement) program.

# **2. Distribution of Subsidies**

This section describes the distribution of expenditures on subsidized products and the distribution of subsidies across households in Jordan based on the 2010 Household Expenditures and Income Survey (HEIS), the most recent flagship consumption survey conducted by the Department of Statistics (DOS) of Jordan. The survey being outdated, all expenditures were inflated to be in 2013 year prices using nominal GDP per capita growth rates.<sup>2</sup>

## **2.1 Petroleum products**

Households in Jordan spent an estimated JD 856 million on subsidized petroleum products such as kerosene, LPG, gasoline<sup>3</sup> and diesel in 2013 (table 2). Expenditures on gasoline account for about twothirds of this amount, followed by LPG (24 percent), kerosene (6 percent) and diesel (5 percent). Wealthier households spend much larger amounts on subsidized petroleum products.

**<u>Table 2. Household expenditures on subsidized petroleum products, mln. JD</u>**

||kerosene|LPG|gasoline|Diesel|Total|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Quintile 1|7|27|21|0|55|
|Quintile 2|9|33|55|0|98|
|Quintile 3|12|38|91|1|141|
|Quintile 4|12|45|139|2|199|
|Quintile 5|14|63|251|35|363|
|Total|55|206|557|38|856|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes: Population quintiles based on spatially adjusted consumption per capita before the reform.</u> Expenditures on gasoline and diesel are relatively more important for wealthier households, while LPG and kerosene are relatively more important for less affluent households (table 3). For example, households in the wealthiest quintile spend an estimated 4.4 percent of their total expenditures on gasoline, while the bottom quintile spends only 1.9 percent. Conversely, the bottom quintile households spend 2.4 percent of their expenditures on LPG, while the wealthiest quintile spends 1.1 percent. Budget shares of each product can be clearly seen in figure 2 plotted over population percentiles ranked by consumption per capita. The positive slope means higher shares of the product in the total budget of the wealthier population. Petroleum

> 2 Wbopendata Stata ado (Azevedo, 2013) was used to retrieve information on GDP per capita from the WDI database as of 3 September 2014.

> 3 Gasoline here refers to Octane-90 only.

5
products as whole account for an estimated 6.4 percent of total household expenditures; with the bottom quintile households spending 5 percent of their total expenditures on these products and the richest quintile spending 6.4 percent.

|**Table 3. Expenditure on subsidized petroleum products relative to t**<br>|**otal ex**<br>|**penditure**<br>|**s (%)**<br>||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|kerosene|LPG|gasoline|diesel|Total|
|Quintile 1<br>0.7|2.4|1.9|0.0|5.0|
|Quintile 2<br>0.6|2.0|3.4|0.0|6.0|
|Quintile 3<br>0.6|1.8|4.3|0.0|6.6|
|Quintile 4<br>0.4|1.6|4.8|0.1|6.9|
|Quintile 5<br>0.2|1.1|4.4|0.6|6.4|
|Total<br>0.4|1.5|4.1|0.3|6.4|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes:</u> Population quintiles <u>based on spatially adjusted consumption per capita before the reform.</u>

|**Figure 2. Expenditure on subsidized petroleum products relative to total expenditures (%)**|
|---|

<!-- Start of picture text --> .06<br>kerosene<br>LPG<br>gasoline<br>diesel<br>.04<br>.02<br>0<br>0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1<br>Percentiles (p)<br>The expenditure shares<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes:</u> Population percentiles <u>based on spatially adjusted consumption per capita before the reform.</u> In terms of actual amounts spent on subsidized products, richer households far outspend poorer ones. For example, the poorest quintile was spending 7 times less on subsidized petroleum products than the richest quintile (6 percent of total national expenditures versus 42 percent as shown in figure 3). This quite directly indicates that wealthier households received higher per capita subsidies than poorer households. Table A1 shows that for all products, per capita subsidies are lower for poor households and this is especially pronounced for gasoline and diesel.

6
**<u>Figure 3. Shares of total expenditures on subsidized petroleum products by quintiles, %</u>**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 100<br>90<br>26<br>30<br>80 45 42<br>70<br>60<br>92<br>50<br>40<br>30<br>20<br>10<br>13 13<br>0 4 1 6<br>kerosene LPG gasoline diesel Total<br>Quintile 1 Quintile 2 Quintile 3 Quintile 4 Quintile 5<br>%<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Note: Population quintiles based on spatially adjusted consumption per capita before the reform.</u>

# **2.2 Electricity**

There are seven electricity tariff brackets in Jordan. According to the latest revision made in August 2013, electricity tariffs range from 0.033 JD/kWh for the lowest consumption bracket (1-160 kWh/month) to 0.259 JD/kWh for the highest consumption bracket (1,000 plus kWh/month), with households paying progressively higher amounts only on the incremental consumption of the higher brackets.

Table 4 contains a list of tariffs, mean annual expenditures on electricity and the number of households for each tariff bracket. As can be seen, more than half of all households in Jordan consume electricity between 301-500 kWh per month. These households spend an estimated JD 270 on electricity per year. Hardly any households consume in the lowest tariff bracket (of less than 160 kWh per month), and the same is true for the highest tariff bracket (of more than 1000 kWh per month).

**<u>Table 4. Parameters to calculate electricity consumption in Jordan</u>**

|Brackets:|2014|Upper bound|Mean annual|N of|% of|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|KWh/Month|tariff, JD|consumption, yearly<br>(JD)|consumption on electricity,<br>JD|households|HH|
|1-160|0.033|63|54|8,967|1|
|161-300|0.072|184|136|355,443|29|
|301-500|0.086|391|270|620,619|51|
|501-600|0.114|528|448|127,452|10|
|601-750|0.152|801|631|80,494|7|
|751-1000|0.181|1344|986|26,901|2|
|>1000|0.259||1828|4,673|0|

<u>Source:</u> Authors’ calculations <u>based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data and official information.</u> 7
Household expenditures on electricity in Jordan are substantial, being more important for poor households from the standpoint of budget shares. Households spent an estimated 359 million JD on electricity in 2013 (using extrapolated data from HEIS 2010), an amount higher than that spent on LPG, diesel and kerosene put together, but lower than expenditures on gasoline. Households from the lowest quintiles spend less on electricity in absolute terms. For instance, households from the poorest quintile spend about a little less than a third on electricity than do the wealthiest quintile (annually about JD 30 per capita compared to JD 105 of the wealthiest quintile). However, the budget shares of electricity are higher among the poorest households; the poorest households spend about 3.5 percent of their budgets on electricity compared to 2.4 percent for the richest households (figure 4). Consequently, poor households can be highly vulnerable to higher tariffs on electricity.

**<u>Figure 4. Annual expenditure on electricity in JD and budget share in %</u>**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 110 Yearly electricity expenditure per capita, JD 4.0<br>Share of electricity in total expenditures, %<br>100 3.5<br>90<br>3.0<br>80<br>2.5<br>70<br>2.0<br>60<br>1.5<br>50<br>1.0<br>40<br>30 0.5<br>20 0.0<br>Quintile 1 Quintile 2 Quintile 3 Quintile 4 Quintile 5<br>Consumption per capita quintiles<br>% of total expenditure<br>Per capita electricity expenditures, JD<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Note: Population quintiles based on spatially adjusted consumption per capita before the reform.</u> The distribution of households with different electricity consumption across quintiles is presented in table 5. Poor households consume less electricity and as a result pay lower tariffs. For instance, 41 percent of the poorest households consume between 161-300 kWh/month compared to 15 percent among the wealthiest households from the top quintile. Nevertheless, the relationship between electricity consumption and welfare is not perfect. There are rich households with low electricity consumption as well as poor households with high electricity consumption, although this may be partially attributed to richer households having smaller household size.

8
|**Table 5. Distribution of house**<br>|**holds by tariff brac**<br>c<br>|**kets and co**<br>onsumption<br>|**nsumptio**<br> percapita <br>|**n per capi**<br> quintiles<br>|**ta across**<br>|**quintiles**<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Brackets:KWh/Month|bottom|2|3|4|Top|Total|
|1-160|1|0|0|1|1|1|
|161-300|41|35|29|25|15|29|
|301-500|52|55|55|51|40|51|
|501-600|5|6|10|14|17|10|
|601-750|1|3|4|7|17|7|
|751-1000|0|0|1|2|8|2|
|>1000|0|0|0|0|2|0|
|Total|100|100|100|100|100|100|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data and official information. <u>Notes: Household quintiles based on spatially adjusted consumption per capita before the reform.</u>

# **3. Simulation of Subsidies Reform, Direct Impact**

All simulations in this paper are based on Jordan’s most recent Household Expenditures and Income Survey from 2010, a nationally representative survey which is used by the Department of Statistics (DOS) to produce official welfare aggregates and poverty estimates. Even though the reforms chosen for simulation were implemented in 2012, the analysis here refers to 2013.<sup>4</sup> Extrapolations between 2010 and 2013 are based on adjustments for economic growth (GDP per capita nominal) and inflation (CPI); also, household and population weights were updated to reflect population size in 2013.<sup>5</sup> Estimates of demand elasticity with respect to price are necessary in order to model consumer responses to price change. Given limitations of having only cross sectional household data with no variation in individual petroleum product prices across households, we used an own-price elasticity of -0.3 to simulate changes in quantities consumed.

## **3.1 Petroleum products**

Simulations for petroleum products are based on price changes largely mimicking the real reform that occurred in November 2012. The price of gasoline (Octane-90) rose by 14 percent, and diesel and kerosene prices increased by 33 percent. The price increases were meant to fully eliminate subsidies on these items. The highest increase in price was for LPG gas cylinders, whose unit price rose from JD6.5 to JD10, or by 53.8 percent. However, despite this large increase, LPG continued to be subsidized. In this section, we decided to simulate the full removal of petroleum subsidies and hence simulated for the full removal of LPG subsidies as well. This is the only difference of our simulation from real subsidies reform introduced in November 2012.

> 4 SUBSIM simulates short-term effects and November 2012 reforms were expected to kick in early in 2013.

> 5 GDP per capita growth and population size are taken from World Development Indicators (WDI), while CPI is based on official country numbers if different from WDI numbers. GDP per capita growth is used to inflate consumption, while CPI to inflate the poverty line. This procedure gives a poverty incidence of 13 percent for 2013 (lower than the official poverty estimate of 14.4 percent for 2010). Exact numbers used are shown in the annex.

9
Using historical data from Saudi Aramco’s contract price on butane and propane, World Bank energy specialists estimated the ‘efficient’ LPG price to be about USD 1,428 per ton. This implies JD 15.3 per cylinder to be the final LPG unit price without any subsidy (Masami Kojima<sup>6</sup> , personal communication August 28, 2014).

Two scenarios are used for simulation. In the first scenario, we simulate the full removal of subsidies without any compensating measures by the government. In the second scenario, subsidies reform is combined with the actual cash transfer program that accompanied the petroleum price increases. The cash transfer targets resident Jordanian households (with the households being the unit of reference) with yearly incomes not exceeding JD10,000. The transfer amounts to JD70 per person per year, for up to a maximum of 6 individuals per household (Araar et al., 2013).

**<u>Table 6. Pre and post reform prices of petroleum products</u>**

||Pre-reformprices<sup>1</sup>|Unit subsidy<br>New|prices<sup>2</sup>after removalofsubsidies|Increase, %|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Gasoline (Octane-90)|0.7|0.1|0.8|14|
|Kerosene|0.52|0.170|0.685|33|
|Diesel|0.52|0.170|0.685|33|
|LPG|6.5|8.8|15.3|135|

Source: Araar et al. (2013). <u>Notes:</u><sup>1</sup> As <u>of October 2012;</u><sup>2</sup> As <u>of November 2012</u> _<u>except</u>_ LPG.

Scenario 1: Subsidy cuts without cash transfers The simulation reveals that the full removal of subsidies on petroleum products would on average lead to an estimated 2.9 percent drop in consumption per capita of households (table 7). For the poorest quintiles, the drop will be higher (3.8 percent). The adverse impact on the poor results mainly from increased LPG prices. The increases in gasoline and kerosene prices have tiny impacts while the increase in diesel price has no impact on consumption. When all households are considered, LPG and gasoline are the two main products to affect household consumption.

**-** **<u>Table 7. Jordan: The impact on the per capita well being of removing petroleum subsidies</u>**

|Quintiles, consumption per<br>capita|Pre-reform,<br>JD<br>Total<br>expenditure<br>s percapita|Post-refor<br>kerosene|m impac<br>LPG|t onpercap<br>gasoline|ita wellbei<br>diesel|ng, JD<br>Total|Change in<br>per capita<br>consumptio<br>n, %|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Quintile 1|843|-2|-28|-2|0|-32|-3.8|
|Quintile 2|1,240|-2|-34|-6|0|-42|-3.4|
|Quintile 3|1,624|-3|-39|-10|0|-52|-3.2|
|Quintile 4|2,198|-3|-47|-15|0|-65|-3.0|
|Quintile 5|4,336|-4|-65|-27|-9|-104|-2.5|
|Total|2,048|-3|-42|-12|-2|-59|-2.9|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes:</u> Population quintiles <u>based on spatially adjusted consumption per capita before the reform.</u>

> 6 Masami Kojima is a lead energy specialist at the World Bank.

10
Poverty would be expected to increase by 1.6 percentage points – from 13 percent in 2013 to 14.6 percent after subsidy removal – accompanied by increases in the poverty gap and in inequality. The overwhelming increase in poverty comes from LPG, which is not surprising given its high share in the budget of poorest households and the large increase in its price (figure 2 and table 8). Poverty gap, measuring how far poor are from the poverty line on average or depth of poverty, would have increased as well, with LPG being the main contributor. Finally, inequality is expected to increase modestly, as reflected by a slightly higher Gini coefficient.

**Table 8. The impact of petroleum subsidies removal on poverty, poverty gap and** **<u>inequality</u>**

||**Poverty hea**<br>Level|**dcount, %**<br>The<br>change|**Pover**<br>Level|**ty gap**<br>The<br>change|**Gi**<br>Level|**ni**<br>The<br>change|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Pre reform|13.0|.|2.44|.|33.66|.|
|kerosene|13.0|0.0|2.47|0.02|33.68|0.03|
|LPG|14.3|1.3|2.83|0.39|34.00|0.35|
|gasoline|13.1|0.1|2.47|0.02|33.61|-0.04|
|Diesel|13.0|0.0|2.44|0.00|33.61|-0.05|
|Post reform|14.6|1.6|2.89|0.45|33.94|0.28|
|Source: Authors’ c|alculations bas|ed on extrapol|ated HEIS|2010 data.|||

Scenario 2: Subsidy cuts with cash transfers In the second scenario we simulate the impact of petroleum price increases on well-being followed by compensatory cash transfer program to Jordanian households with annual incomes below JD10,000.

**-** **<u>Table 9. The impact of petroleum subsidy reform and cash transfer on per capita well being</u>**

||Pre-reform||Post-reform<br>Imact on er|Chane in er|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||Total expenditures<br>per capita|Total expenditures per<br>capita|p p<br>capita wellbeing,<br>JD|g p<br>capita<br>consumption, %|
|Quintile 1|843|857|14|1.6|
|Quintile 2|1,240|1244|3|0.3|
|Quintile 3|1,624|1611|‐13|‐0.8|
|Quintile 4|2,198|2166|‐32|‐1.5|
|Quintile 5|4,336|4253|‐83|‐1.9|
|Total|2,048|2026|‐22|‐1.1|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes:</u> Population quintiles <u>based on consumption per capita before the reform.</u> As can be seen in tables 9 and 10, if perfectly targeted, the cash transfer offsets the negative impact of higher prices of subsidized products for the bottom 40 percent of the population. Consumption per capita would in fact grow by 1.6 percent for the bottom quintile, though on average consumption per capita would decline by 1.1 percent. Poverty would be expected to fall by 0.6 percentage points from 13 to 12.4 percent. The depth of poverty would decline as well by an impressive 0.2 percentage points. Finally, inequality, as measured by Gini coefficient, would fall as well by 1.7 percent.

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|**Table 10. The impact of petroleum subsidy reform and cash transfer on poverty and inequality**|
|---|

||Poverty<br>level, %|Change in<br>poverty, pp|Poverty<br>gap, %|Change in<br>poverty<br>gap, pp|Gini<br>coefficient|Change in<br>Gini<br>coefficient,<br>%|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Pre-reform|13||2.4||33.66||
|Post-reform: no cash<br>transfers|14.6|1.6|2.9|0.4|33.94|0.8|
|Post-reform: cash transfer<br>perfectly targeted|12.4|-0.6|2.2|-0.2|33.08|-1.7|
|Source:Authors’calculation|s based onex|trapolatedHEIS|2010 data.||||

The impact of the petroleum products reform on government revenues Removing subsidies on petroleum products without compensation would generate an increase in government revenues by JD 389 million per year (table 11). More than 70 percent of the increased revenues come from higher LPG prices and 20 percent come from gasoline. Higher revenues from LPG are associated with the much higher increase in prices for LPG compared with that for gasoline (135 percent versus 14 percent). The removal of kerosene and diesel subsidies will generate only modest increase in revenues. As the subsidies were pro-rich in nature, with their removal, richer households would contribute proportionally more to the increased revenues: the poorest quintile accounts only for an estimated 11 percent of the increase in revenues, compared to 35 percent by the top quintile.

|**Table 11: The impact of petroleum subs**<br>|**idy eliminatio**<br>|**n on the governm**<br>|**ent revenue, m**<br>|**ln. JD**<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|kerosene|LPG|Gasoline|diesel|Total|
|Quintile 1<br>2|37|3|0|42|
|Quintile 2<br>3|45|8|0|56|
|Quintile 3<br>4|51|13|0|68|
|Quintile 4<br>4|61|20|1|86|
|Quintile 5<br>5|85|36|12|137|
|Total<br>18|279|80|13|389|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes:</u> Population quintiles <u>based on consumption per capita before the reform.</u> The cost of the cash transfer program launched by the government was about JD320 million per year. This was in fact higher than the revenues generated to the government _from households_ from the actual reforms the government had carried out in November 2012. Though additional savings to the government were generated from consumers other than households, the cash transfer program appeared costly in the sense that it over-compensated a majority (almost 70 percent) of Jordanian households. (Araar et al 2013). The reform option we simulated in this section estimates the revenues/cost savings generated from households’ use of petroleum products (JD 389 mln.) to be higher than the cash transfer cost but still appears to be quite generous as it over-compensates almost half the population. To put matters in perspective, only 206 million of Jordanian dinars are needed to have the pre-reform poverty rate if transfers are universal. If transfers are perfectly targeted to the bottom quintile, only JD 41 million would be needed to bring poverty to its pre12
reform level. The design of the cash transfer program that was implemented in November 2012 along with a detailed discussion of options for improvement can be found in Araar et al (2013).

# **3.2 Electricity**

Three scenarios for electricity tariffs reforms Three scenarios are explored in simulating the impact of reforms in electricity tariffs (table 12). The first scenario assumes no change in the tariff policy and simply applies tariffs planned for implementation in 2015. According to this scenario, tariffs will increase slightly for consumers from the top fifth, six and seventh blocks. The second scenario is the most radical reform scenario, implying a full removal of subsidies. Within this scenario we present two reform options. According to the first one – labelled as “flat” reform, – tariffs for all consumers become flat, i.e., equal to the cost recovery level at JD 0.164 per kWh. This implies a huge burden on the poorer households with the lowest electricity consumption because the prices they faced were the lowest. The second sub-scenario -- labelled “progressive” reform – mimics the first sub-scenario in terms of the _average_ impact on wellbeing, but uses a completely different approach to tariff increase.<sup>7</sup> Under this sub-scenario, the burden of subsidies elimination is disproportionately placed on the shoulders of the richest households who experience the highest increase in electricity tariffs. Given that scenario two is quite severe – leading to more than a doubling of prices for many brackets – and likely very difficult to implement, we simulate a third scenario with quasi progressive increase in tariffs for all consumers keeping tariffs on the first two blocks subsidized.<sup>8</sup> This scenario, however, does not fully eliminate the electricity subsidies.

**<u>Table 12. Different scenarios for electricity tariff reforms</u>**

|KWh|Current<br>||**Scena**<br>2015 t|**rio 1**<br>riff||**Scen**<br>full eli<br>ofsu|**ario 2**<br>mination<br>bsidies||**Scena**<br>Sem<br>rri|**rio 3**<br>i-<br>inr|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|per month|tariff<br>2014|subsidy||s|f|I<br>lat|I<br>progr|I<br>essive|pogessv<br>in ta|cease<br>riffs|
||||final|%|final|%|final|%|final|%|
|1-160|0.033|0.113|0.033|0.0|0.146|341.5|0.056|70.0|0.036|10|
|161-300|0.072|0.074|0.072|0.0|0.146|102.3|0.144|100.0|0.09|25|
|301-500|0.086|0.06|0.086|0.0|0.146|69.4|0.232|170.0|0.146|69|
|501-600|0.114|0.032|0.114|0.0|0.146|27.8|0.365|220.0|0.228|100|
|601-750|0.152|0|0.175|15.1|0.146|-3.9|0.502|230.0|0.304|100|
|751-1000|0.181|0|0.209|15.5|0.146|-19.3|0.615|240.0|0.362|100|
|>1000|0.259|0|0.285|10.0|0.146|-43.6|0.907|250.0|0.518|100|

Source: Official tariff instructions replacing electricity tariff instructions 17/6/2012. Notes: Subsidies are calculated based on 2012 cost recovery tariff from National Electricity Report (NEPCO, 2012).

> 7 Strictly speaking second sub-scenario does not fully eliminate subsidies since consumers from the first block still continue to be subsidized and tariffs on others are not raised by enough to offset this subsidy.

> 8 People in the third bracket also may be subsidized if their consumption in the third bracket is low.

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Applying 2015 tariffs has little negative impact on the per capita wellbeing of households. Given small increases in tariffs that are focused mostly on rich consumers, expenditures per capita are expected to decline on average by JD0.6 or about 0.03 percent (table 13). This would bring no changes in poverty and poverty gap measures.

**<u>Table 13. The impact of 2015 tariffs on economic wellbeing</u>**

|Quintiles|Impact, JD|Impact, %|
|---|---|---|
|Quintile 1|-0.02|0.00|
|Quintile 2|-0.05|0.00|
|Quintile 3|-0.15|-0.01|
|Quintile 4|-0.31|-0.01|
|Quintile 5|-2.48|-0.06|
|Total|-0.60|-0.03|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes: Population quintiles based on consumption per capita before the reform.</u> Full removal of subsidies, in contrast, will have a considerable impact on economic wellbeing. Fully removing subsidies with a flat tariff rate is expected to reduce consumption per capita on average by JD 72.5 or by 3.6 percent. The negative impact is expected to be the strongest for the poorest households, with the bottom quintile experiencing on average a 5.7 percent reduction in per capita consumption. The negative burden on the poorest households can be reduced if a progressive increase of tariffs is applied. In this case, the negative impact would be less pronounced for the poor even though the average household consumption would drop by the same amount. Nevertheless, both sub-scenarios are quite severe and would be difficult to implement. A semi-progressive increase in tariffs leading to a smaller reduction in subsidies, as depicted in scenario 3, is perhaps more realistic; the relative impact on households across the distribution would be almost equal, with a 1.2 percent reduction in per capita on average (table 14).

**<u>Table 14. Different scenario for electricity tariff reforms</u>**

|iil|Total<br>i|fu|**Scena**<br>ll eliminatio|**rio 2**<br>n of subsid|ies|**Scen**<br>semi-progress<br>tar|**ario 3**<br>ive increase in<br>iffs|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|untes|consumton er|||||||
||<br>capita|fl<br>|at<br>|Progr<br>|essive<br>|||
|||Impact,<br>JD|Impact,<br>%|Impact,<br>JD|Impact,<br>%|Impact,<br> JD|Impact,<br>%|
|Quintile 1|843|-49|-5.8|-33|-3.9|-10|-1.1|
|Quintile 2|1,240|-59|-4.7|-42|-3.4|-13|-1.0|
|Quintile 3|1,624|-66|-4.1|-54|-3.4|-18|-1.1|
|Quintile 4|2,198|-78|-3.5|-71|-3.2|-24|-1.1|
|Quintile 5|4,336|-109|-2.5|-157|-3.6|-58|-1.3|
|Total|2,048|-72|-3.5|-72|-3.5|-24|-1.2|

Source: Official tariff instructions replacing electricity tariff instructions 17/6/2012. <u>Notes: Population quintiles based on consumption per capita before the reform.</u>

**Full elimination of subsidies has the strongest negative impact on poverty and inequality.** In particular, poverty is expected to increase by 2.4 percentage points, poverty gap by 0.7 percentage points and inequality by 1.9 percent (table 15). Planned tariffs for 2015 year will not have negative impact, while semi-

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progressive increase in tariffs will lead to a moderate increase in poverty, with poverty increasing by 0.5 percentage points. This reform will, however, have a rather equalizing impact on distribution reducing the Gini coefficient by 0.2 percent.

|**Table 15. The impact of electricity subsid**|**y reform an**<br>|**d cash tr**<br>|**ansfer o**<br>|**n povert**<br>|**y and ineq**<br>|**uality**<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Poverty<br>level, %|Change,<br>pp|Poverty<br>gap, %|Change,<br>pp|Gini<br>coefficient|Change,<br>%|
|**Pre-reform**|13.0|.|2.4|.|33.66|.|
|**Post-reform:**|||||||
|Scenario 1: 2015 tariffs|13.0|0.0|2.4|0.0|33.64|-0.04|
|**Post-reform: Scenario 2:**|||||||
|full elimination of electricity subsidies, flat|15.4|2.4|3.2|0.7|34.28|1.9|
|full elimination of electricity subsidies<br>progressive|14.7|1.7|2.9|0.5|33.66|0.0|
|**Post-reform: Scenario 3**:|||||||
|semi-progressive increase in tariffs|13.5|0.5|2.6|0.1|33.59|-0.2|
|Source:Authors’calculations based onextrapol|atedHEIS201|0 data.|||||

The impact of the electricity reform on government revenues The largest savings from electricity reform will come from the second scenario assuming full elimination of subsidies. The government can save the largest amount (estimated at JD473 million) from full removal of subsidies under the scenario of flat tariffs (table 16). However, this reform will also have the largest impact on poverty as shown in table 15. To get to the pre-reform poverty and poverty gap levels around JD319 million will be required. Therefore, the net gain will be JD158 million. Under progressive subscenario, the costs of the transfer to compensate the poor will be smaller and the government will save about JD174 million. In the third scenario with semi-progressive increase in tariffs, overall gain from higher tariffs will be JD 162 million. From this amount JD70 million have to be transferred back (assuming universal transfer) to bring poverty to pre-reform level leaving the government with JD92 million (table 17).

|**Table 16: The impact of the electricity subsidy reform on the government expenditures, mln. JD**|
|---|

|**Quintiles**|Scenario 1,<br>2015 tariffs|Scenario 2,<br>su<br>|full elimination of<br>bsidies<br>|Scenario 3,<br>semi-progressive|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|||flat|progressive||
|Quintile 1|-0|-64|-44|-14|
|Quintile 2|-0|-77|-55|-19|
|Quintile 3|-0|-87|-66|-25|
|Quintile 4|-0|-102|-82|-33|
|Quintile 5|-3|-143|-144|-71|
|Total|-4|-473|-391|-162|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes: Population quintiles based on consumption per capita before the reform.</u> 15
**Table 17: The impact of the electricity subsidy reform on the government expenditures correcting** **<u>for measures, mln. JD</u>**

||Pre-Reform|Scenario 1|**Post-R**<br>Scen<br>flat|**eform**<br>ario 2<br>prog.|Scenario 3|**Change**<br>**redu**<br>**expe**<br>Scenario 1|**(negati**<br>**ction in**<br>**nditures**<br>Scen<br>flat|**ve value**<br>**govern**<br>**or savi**<br>ario 2<br>prog.|**s mean**<br>**ment**<br>**ngs)**<br>Scenario 3|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Subsidies|477|473|3|86|315|-4|-473|-391|-162|
|Transfers *|0|1|316|217|70|1|316|217|70|
|Total budget|477|473|319|303|385|-3|-158|-174|-92|

Source: Authors’ calculations based on extrapolated HEIS 2010 data. <u>Notes: Population quintiles based on consumption per capita before the reform. * Universal transfers assumed.</u>

# **4. Simulation of Subsidies Reform, Indirect Impact**

## **4.1 Petroleum products**

We now turn to the simulation of indirect effects of the rise in petroleum product prices combining a Jordanian Input-Output (I/O) table with HIES data. The baseline data for the producer price shocks are in table 18 below. The Jordan I/O table (2010) does not have disaggregated-by-type petroleum product statistics. Therefore, to capture the likely impact on economy-wide prices (of petroleum product subsidy removal), we use disaggregated production figures from the state-owned refinery as expectation proxy of the industry-wide petroleum-product mix. The gasoline shock to the petroleum sector is a price increase of 2.9 percent, which is equal to the change in price in gasoline (from table 6 above) multiplied by gasoline’s expected share (20.6 percent) in industry’s total petroleum product usage. Similarly, the diesel shock – at 10.5 percent – is equal to the change in price in diesel multiplied by diesel’s expected share in industry’s fuel mix .<sup>9</sup>

**<u>Table 18: Expected producer price increase in the Jordan fuel sector</u>**

||Price increase, pre- to<br>post-reform period (%,|Expected share in total<br>industry fuel|Expected magnitude of<br>producer price increase|
|---|---|---|---|
|Petroleum Product|fromtable 6)|consumption(%)|in fuelsector|
|Gasoline|14|21|2.9|
|Diesel|33|32|10.5|
|Source: Araaret al. (2013),|Jordan PetroleumCo.LTD|. annual report2012, autho|rs’calculations.|

Results of the simulations (table 19) show that the relation between direct and indirect effects varies significantly across products and across quintiles. Indirect effects are approximately 77 percent of the total for diesel but only 14 percent for gasoline.<sup>10</sup> The difference is directly attributable to household consumption patterns. Even though the diesel price increase is over 3 times larger than the gasoline price increase and economy-wide prices rise more after the diesel subsidy is eliminated, households purchase so

> 9 The indirect impacts on households of these two producer price changes are calculated separately and independently and holding all other controlled producer prices – including those of the other petroleum products – fixed. Industry is not expected to use significant amounts of LPG or kerosene.

> 10 The most accurate estimates for direct effects remain those provided in the previous section and we will disregard estimates of direct effects using I/O data. What is of interest here is the relative share of indirect effects over total effects.

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little diesel that they are virtually unaffected directly. Any impact from higher diesel prices arrives indirectly through an increase in the price of the household consumption basket.

Within gasoline, the relative weight of indirect effects is also different across quintiles. The total indirect effect of the gasoline subsidy removal falls from about a third of total effects in the first quintile to about 12 percent for the upper quintile. This is understandable as the upper quintile spends over 10 times as much on gasoline directly as does the poorest quintile (see figure 3 above).

**-** **<u>Table 19. Jordan: Direct and indirect impacts on well being of removing petroleum subsidies.</u>**

|Quintiles||Diesel|||Gasoline||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||total direct<br>(JD)|total<br>indirect<br>(JD)|share of<br>indirect in<br>total|total direct<br>(JD)|total<br>indirect<br>(JD)|share of<br>indirect in<br>total|
|Quintile 1|0|3|100%|2|0.9|30%|
|Quintile 2|0|5|100%|6|1|17%|
|Quintile 3|0|6|100%|10|2|14%|
|Quintile 4|0|8|100%|15|2|12%|
|Quintile 5|9|13|60%|27|4|12%|
|Total|2|7|77%|12|2|14%|
|Source:Authors’calcu|lations based onextrap|olatedHEIS|2010 data and|the Jordan 201|0Input/Outp|ut table.|

# **4.2 Electricity**

The simulations for indirect effects of electricity subsidy removal, similar to the petroleum product subsidy reform, were carried out by linking the Jordanian I/O table to the HIES data.<sup>11</sup> In average magnitude, the producer price shocks in the electricity sector are equivalent to a household-consumption-weighted average of the household price shocks (table 12).<sup>12</sup> Simulation results indicate that the indirect effects of electricity price changes vary significantly by household rank (table 20). In absolute magnitude (i.e., in terms of JDs), the indirect effects are approximately 5 times greater for the upper quintile than for the poorest quintile. This is primarily because richer households have consumption baskets weighted more heavily with non-food goods and services, production of which is electricity-intensive. Poorer households, in contrast, have consumption baskets weighted towards food, the production of which is not as electricity-intensive.

Results also indicate that the relation between direct and indirect effects varies significantly by the electricity subsidy elimination scenario. For example, in Scenario 2.I, indirect effects are about a third of the total for the poorest households and close to half of the total for the richest households. In Scenario 2.I, households consuming the highest electricity volumes see the smallest relative post-reform electricity price increases so it makes sense that the direct effect rises slowly across expenditure quintiles. In Scenario 3 price increases are higher for higher volume users (upper quintiles), so the quintile-wise relationship between direct and indirect effects is reversed: direct effects rise more quickly across expenditure levels

> 11 The indirect impacts on households of these price changes are calculated holding all other controlled producer prices fixed.

> 12 See Table A3 and accompanying text in the box 1 in the annex for more details on the construction of the blockand consumption-weighted average electricity tariffs.

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than do indirect effects. In Scenario 3, indirect effect shares are smaller for the upper quintile than for the poorest quintile.

**Table 20. Jordan: Direct and indirect impacts on well-being of removing electricity subsidies**

|Quintiles,consumptionper capita|S|cenario 2.I,fla|t||Scenario|3|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||total<br>direct<br>(JD)|total<br>indirect<br>(JD)|share of<br>indirect<br>intotal|total<br>direct<br>(JD)|total<br>indirect<br>(JD)|share of<br>indirect in<br>total|
|Quintile 1|49|21|30%|10|4|26%|
|Quintile 2|59|31|34%|13|5|29%|
|Quintile 3|66|41|38%|18|7|28%|
|Quintile 4|78|54|41%|24|9|28%|
|Quintile 5|109|102|48%|58|17|23%|
|Total|72|50|41%|24|8|26%|
|Source:Authors’calculations based on|extrapolatedH|EIS2010 dat|a and the Jor|dan 2010|Input/Outpu|t table.|

# **5. The Political Economy of Reforms**

The simulations indicate that the current subsidy system provides valuable assistance to the poor, but at the same time it is pro-rich and inefficient. Eliminating subsidies and compensating the poor and vulnerable with a direct cash transfer would be a more effective form of social protection. Subsidy reform, however, is a politically sensitive issue. A major reform of the bread subsidy in 1996 involving the complete elimination of the price support and its replacement by a cash transfer was rapidly overturned following widespread social unrest (and what came to be known as ‘food riots’). Thus, even as the government is burdened by high subsidy costs, reform efforts are hampered by political economy considerations.

**<u>Figure 5: Opposition to reform consumption subsidy on any product</u>**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 70%<br>60%<br>50%<br>40%<br>30%<br>20%<br>10%<br>0%<br>Poor Lower Middle Upper middle and rich<br>Egypt Lebanon Jordan Tunisia<br>Source: Silva et al. (2013) calculations using the MENA SPEAKS survey<br><!-- End of picture text --> The opposition to subsidy reform appears particularly strong in Jordan, especially when compared with neighboring countries (figure 5). Data from the MENA SPEAKS (Social Protection Evaluations of Attitudes, Knowledge and Support) Survey, indicates that about 56 percent of Jordanians were opposed to 18
subsidy reform on any consumer item, be it electricity, food, petroleum products or water (Silva et al. 2013). Interestingly, in all countries, the (self-identified) lower middle income group is slightly less likely to oppose subsidy reform than the upper middle and wealthy group, and in three out of four countries the lower middle income group is slightly more willing to consider subsidy reform than the self-identified poor.

However, of those willing to consider subsidy reform (in the MENA SPEAKS survey’s Jordan sample), diesel was the most frequently cited candidate for reform, followed by subsidy on bread (figure 6). Electricity and LPG subsidies, which are much larger, appear to be even more politically sensitive than bread subsidies (removals of which have led to riots in the past): only 11 percent of respondents were open to LPG subsidy removals and a paltry 7% were willing to consider electricity reforms. These figures underscore the challenges the government faces. In fact, the government appears to be sensitive to such concerns as the November 2012 reforms did not fully eliminate LPG subsidies while eliminating the subsidies on other petroleum products. It is interesting that the opposition to reforming expensive and regressive energy subsidies is stronger than opposition to food subsidies (which tend to be less regressive). A likely explanation for this is the relative importance of these energy products in the consumption baskets of people.

**Figure 6: Preferred product for subsidy removal (assuming reform is** **<u>inevitable)</u>**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 35%<br>29%<br>30%<br>25%<br>20%<br>19%<br>20%<br>15%<br>15%<br>11%<br>10% 7%<br>5%<br>0%<br>Gasoline Water Electricity LPG / gas Diesel Bread /<br>cylinders flour<br><!-- End of picture text --> <u>Source: Silva et al. (2013) calculations using the MENA SPEAKS survey</u> These numbers beg the question as to how the November 2012 petroleum reforms went into effect without any significant public unrest. Silva et al. (2013) synthesize the vast literature in social protection to summarize the strategies that underscore successful reforms. First and foremost they mention right timing to be key to the success and failure of reforms. More specifically, they argue that it is easier to generate support behind a reform during a crisis, a situation aptly characterizing Jordan. The population in Jordan appeared to sense that the country was in fiscal crisis and petroleum subsidy removals were inevitable. Moreover, from initial episodes of hope, the Arab Spring eventually generated fear of unrest and violence, all the more so given the experiences of neighboring Egypt and the Syrian Arab Republic. The subsidy reforms were likely aided by the strong aversion to the political and social instability that vocal opposition had the potential to generate.

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Compensation of losers from reform also played a role in the reform’s apparent success. While fiscal constraints often make it challenging for a government to provide direct compensation, the November 2012 reforms were accompanied by a generous cash transfer that was designed to fully compensate the bottom 70 percent of Jordanians from the losses due to the removal of subsidies. The cash transfer in fact appeared to over-compensate a large swath of the population (Araar et al. 2013). The speed with which the transfer took place is also a factor in the reform’s apparent success. While the petroleum price hikes were announced on November 12, within the next few weeks a large number of people started receiving the cash compensation.

In enacting future reforms the government can learn from its own experience. There have been concerns regarding the targeting efficiency of the cash program accompanying the 2012 subsidy reforms (see, e.g., Araar et al. 2013). The government itself has taken measures to improve the targeting, specifically by setting up a National Unified Registry (NUR) database to better target beneficiaries for future cash compensation programs. Nevertheless, tackling electricity subsidy reform appears to be daunting for the government because of its sheer scale.

# **6. Conclusions**

This paper examined the distributional and fiscal implications of petroleum and electricity subsidy reforms. Both subsidies are pro-rich in nature, and in absolute monetary terms, richer households benefit more than poorer households as their consumption levels are higher. Thus, these universal subsidies are costly and inefficient as a majority portion of the total subsidies ‘leak’ to the non-poor households, and significant amounts actually leak to the top quintile households. However, the analysis also suggests that the poorer segments of the population benefit quite substantially from the subsidies and removal of subsidies would impose economic hardship on these groups.

Nevertheless, as the government wishes to strike a balance between protecting its population from price increases and ensuring fiscal prudence, a move away from the universal subsidies system appears imperative. This move, however, would require a considered analysis of both technical and political economy considerations. A generous cash transfer can be put in place to help build broad based public support for reforming universal subsidies, but the government needs to target these transfers well through developing a sound social protection system.

Finally, it is important to note that while this paper has presented several findings, the scope of analysis was necessarily constrained by time and data availability. The focus was limited to microanalysis of household level impacts. A more comprehensive analysis would involve broader sectors of the economy (such as non-household users of petroleum products and electricity), as well as involve a political economy and stakeholder analysis to identify who would gain and who would lose from reform and how.

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