Revisiting the distributional impacts of water subsidy policy in Chile: a historical analysis from 1998–2015

Contreras, Dante; Gómez-Lobo, Andrés; Palma, Isidora

doi:10.2166/wp.2018.073

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In these neighbourhoods, access to network infrastructure services has become increasingly hard, not because of lack of physical infrastructure, but because of the cost of privatised services. Water bills, for instance, have had to be subsidised by the state: by 2015, more than 800,000 households received a water subsidy in Chile (Contreras et al, 2018). As is evident in the interviews, the Internet is increasingly being seen as a basic service, similar to water, sanitation, electricity, and waste collection.…”

Section: Two Neighbourhoods In Santiagomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social and Political Life of Latin American Infrastructures

2022

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From houses to roads, infrastructure provides a unique lens through which to explore social and political change. Serving as an important conduit between states and individuals, infrastructure provides governments with a powerful tool to mould citizens and control populations. Yet, at the same time, it also provides individuals and collectives with a platform to challenge the state and forge alternative forms of citizenship and politics. Infrastructure therefore often reconfigures social and political relations in unexpected ways and never dutifully follows the scripts of politicians, bureaucrats, and engineers. Latin America provides fertile terrain to explore these issues. The region has been subject to extensive foreign intervention for centuries and much of its infrastructure has been primarily constructed to benefit colonial and imperial powers. Yet it has also been an important site of resistance, and infrastructure has been central to these struggles, including indigenous efforts to challenge capitalist-colonial expansion. Latin America’s history and diversity create unique infrastructure configurations, and the region’s remarkable geography adds to their distinctiveness. This cross-disciplinary book seeks to capture the characteristics, limits and vibrancy of Latin America’s infrastructures. The empirical chapters explore a wide range of infrastructures, from irrigation networks in Peru to nuclear plants in Cuba. The introduction builds on these chapters to show the value of understanding infrastructure as a relational and experimental process. In doing so, the volume makes a novel contribution to global infrastructure debates and provides important new insights into Latin America’s history and politics.

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Section: Two Neighbourhoods In Santiagomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social and Political Life of Latin American Infrastructures

2022

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“…Indeed, direct subsidies offer an interesting contrast to indirect subsidies or crosssubsidization. In this way, the Chilean water subsidy model promotes better targeting of the benefit towards poor customers than other schemes found in developing countries [29].…”

Section: Chilementioning

confidence: 99%

Models of Subsidies for Water and Sanitation Services for Vulnerable People in South American Countries: Lessons for Brazil

Narzetti

Marques

2020

Water

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Access to water and sanitation services (WSS) in developing countries is constrained by the conditions of social inequality and the services affordability for the poorest households. Therefore, public policies related to WSS need to broaden in scope given the challenge of reaching all customers, especially the most vulnerable, in order to achieve a balance between the social and financial objectives of WSS. This paper will contribute to the understanding of the main access and subsidy policies in South American countries focusing on the Brazilian case study. The different experiences in this region have provided some interesting lessons about these issues for Brazil; the conclusion is that the current indirect and cross-subsidy policies are important, but the needed practices for expanding pro-poor access require direct demand-side subsidies. A more proactive intervention through public authorities is also needed. A new subsidization model for Brazil is highlighted and discussed.

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“…With respect to the Latin American region, some works have looked at the incidence of the federal subsidies to residential public services. This body of research has found that although subsidies can be a tool to protect the poor, a large share have been absorbed by upper classes and non-residential consumers in Argentina [5], and that depending on the targeting strategy, the effectiveness of the subsidy at reaching poor households might be moderate as described by Contreras, Gomez-Lobo, and Palma [6] in Chile and Colombia [7], or even decrease the proportion of poor households receiving benefits as mentioned by Barde and Lehmann [8] for the case of Peru. For the special case of Mexico City, Morales-Novelo et al [9] have shown that residential water subsidies have a regressive structure benefiting wealthier households more heavily than poorer families in the city.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incidence of Subsidies in Residential Public Services in Mexico: The Case of the Water Sector

Borja-Vega

Morales

González

2019

Water

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Access to safe water has tremendous direct and indirect impacts on poverty-related outcomes. In Mexico, economies of scale in water provision justify bulk provision of water, such that it is collectively rational to invest heavily in capital for infrastructure development. This is compounded by the fact that water utilities are highly capital-intensive. We analyze two distinct types of subsidies prevalent in the residential water sector. We exploit a household socio-economic module with detailed water services information from the 2014 National Income and Expenditure Survey in Mexico. We combined this data with a unique dataset from water operators in Mexico (PIGOO). We estimate economic (considering operating costs) and direct (considering household’s water payments) subsidies targeted to residential water tariff subsidies. Large heterogeneity in the direct subsidy incidence is found, which partly explains the distortions and wide differences in tariffs and total amount paid for water among different segments of the income distribution. The Omega Indicators (Ω), defined as the proportion of the subsidies received by the poor divided by the proportion of households in the total population in poverty, is less than one, implying that wealthy populations benefit more from water subsidies (economic and direct) than the poor.

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Revisiting the distributional impacts of water subsidy policy in Chile: a historical analysis from 1998–2015

Cited by 11 publications

References 9 publications

The Social and Political Life of Latin American Infrastructures

The Social and Political Life of Latin American Infrastructures

Models of Subsidies for Water and Sanitation Services for Vulnerable People in South American Countries: Lessons for Brazil

Incidence of Subsidies in Residential Public Services in Mexico: The Case of the Water Sector

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