IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v117y2012i3p708-711.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corruption, food subsidies, and opacity: Evidence from the Philippines

Author

Listed:
  • Mehta, Aashish
  • Jha, Shikha

Abstract

We argue that subsidized food distribution systems that fail to publicize how much food has been allocated to each local market will experience high rates of theft on the margin as they are expanded. We provide the first comparable cross-section of estimates of subsidized food theft. As predicted, in regions of the Philippines that were allocated more subsidized rice to distribute, a larger percentage of the rice went missing.

Suggested Citation

  • Mehta, Aashish & Jha, Shikha, 2012. "Corruption, food subsidies, and opacity: Evidence from the Philippines," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 708-711.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:3:p:708-711
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2012.07.023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176512004089
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2012.07.023?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reetika Khera, 2011. "Trends in Diversion of PDS Grain," Working Papers id:3793, eSocialSciences.
    2. Jha, Skikha & Ramaswami, Bharat, 2012. "The Percolation of Public Expenditure: Food Subsidies and the Poor in India and the Philippines," India Policy Forum, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 8(1), pages 95-138.
    3. Olken, Benjamin A., 2006. "Corruption and the costs of redistribution: Micro evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 853-870, May.
    4. Ritva Reinikka & Jakob Svensson, 2004. "Local Capture: Evidence from a Central Government Transfer Program in Uganda," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 679-705.
    5. Timmer, C. Peter, 2010. "Reflections on food crises past," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-11, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zouhaier Aloui & Samir Maktouf, 2024. "The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment and Political Stability on Food Security: Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 66(2), pages 289-328, June.
    2. Krisztina Kis-Katos & Günther G. Schulze, 2013. "Corruption in Southeast Asia: a survey of recent research," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 27(1), pages 79-109, May.
    3. Ogunniyi, Adebayo Isaiah & Mavrotas, George & Olagunju, Kehinde Oluseyi & Fadare, Olusegun & Adedoyin, Rufai, 2020. "Governance quality, remittances and their implications for food and nutrition security in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    4. Mehta, Aashish & Jha, Shikha & Quising, Pilipinas, 2013. "Self-targeted food subsidies and voice: Evidence from the Philippines," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 204-217.
    5. Danny Cassimon & Olusegun Fadare & George Mavrotas, 2023. "The Impact of Food Aid and Governance on Food and Nutrition Security in Sub-Saharan Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-19, January.
    6. Ogunniyi, A. & Mavrotas, G. & Olagunju, K. & Fadare, O. & Rufai, A.M., 2018. "The Paradigm of Governance Quality, Migration and its Implication on Food and Nutritional Security in Sub- Saharan Africa: What does Dynamic Generalized Method of Moments estimation reveal?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275994, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mehta, Aashish & Jha, Shikha, 2014. "Pilferage from opaque food subsidy programs: Theory and evidence," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 69-79.
    2. Hanming Fang, 2024. "Measurements, determinants, causes, and consequences of corruption: lessons from China’s anti-corruption campaign," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(1), pages 3-25, February.
    3. Arteaga, Fernando & Desierto, Desiree & Koyama, Mark, 2024. "Shipwrecked by rents," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Jiang, Shuguang & Wei, Qian & Zhao, Lei, 2024. "Synergizing anti-corruption strategies: Group monitoring and endogenous crackdown – An experimental investigation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Han, Linsong & Li, Xun & Xu, Gang, 2022. "Anti-corruption and poverty alleviation: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 150-172.
    6. Simons, Andrew M., 2022. "What is the optimal locus of control for social assistance programs? Evidence from the Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    7. Oana Borcan & Mikael Lindahl & Andreea Mitrut, 2017. "Fighting Corruption in Education: What Works and Who Benefits?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 180-209, February.
    8. Armand, Alex & Coutts, Alexander & Vicente, Pedro C. & Vilela, Inês, 2023. "Measuring corruption in the field using behavioral games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    9. Oriana Bandiera & Andrea Prat & Tommaso Valletti, 2009. "Active and Passive Waste in Government Spending: Evidence from a Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1278-1308, September.
    10. C. Peter Timmer, 2014. "Food Security in Asia and the Pacific: The Rapidly Changing Role of Rice," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 73-90, January.
    11. Beekman, Gonne & Bulte, Erwin & Nillesen, Eleonora, 2014. "Corruption, investments and contributions to public goods: Experimental evidence from rural Liberia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 37-47.
    12. Andaleeb Rahman, 2014. "Revival of rural PDS: Expansion and outreach," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2014-012, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    13. Nicolas Campos & Eduardo Engel & Ronald D. Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2019. "Renegotiations and corruption in infrastructure: The Odebrecht case," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0230, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    14. Sjahrir, Bambang Suharnoko & Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Schulze, Günther G., 2014. "Administrative Overspending in Indonesian Districts: The Role of Local Politics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 166-183.
    15. Fang, Hanming & Gu, Quanlin & Zhou, Li-An, 2019. "The gradients of power: Evidence from the Chinese housing market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 32-52.
    16. Isaksson, Ann-Sofie & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2018. "Chinese aid and local corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 146-159.
    17. Xu, Gang & Wang, Xue & Wang, Ruiting & Yano, Go & Zou, Rong, 2021. "Anti-corruption, safety compliance and coal mine deaths: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 458-488.
    18. Banerjee, Abhijit & Hanna, Rema & Kyle, Jordan C. & Olken, Benjamin A. & Sumarto, Sudarno, 2015. "The Power of Transparency: Information, Identification Cards, and Food Subsidy Programs in Indonesia," Working Paper Series rwp15-010, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    19. M. Shahe Emran & Asadul Islam & Forhad Shilpi, 2020. "Distributional Effects of Corruption When Enforcement is Biased: Theory and Evidence from Bribery in Schools in Bangladesh," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(348), pages 985-1015, October.
    20. Nathan Fiala & Patrick Premand, 2018. "Social Accountability and Service Delivery: Experimental Evidence from Uganda," Working papers 2018-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pilferage; Transfer program; Food subsidy; Transparency; Opacity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:3:p:708-711. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.