IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v69y2014icp165-178.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impacts of removing fuel import subsidies in Nigeria on poverty

Author

Listed:
  • Siddig, Khalid
  • Aguiar, Angel
  • Grethe, Harald
  • Minor, Peter
  • Walmsley, Terrie

Abstract

The petroleum sector contributes substantially to the Nigerian economy; however, the potential benefits are diminished due to the existence of significant subsidies on imports of petroleum products. Subsidies on imported petroleum products are considered to be an important instrument for keeping fuel prices, and hence the cost of living, low. The costs of these subsidies, however, has risen dramatically in recent years due to increased volatility in world petroleum and petroleum product prices and increased illegal exportation of subsidized petroleum products into neighboring countries. Removing the subsidy on fuel is one of the most contentious socio-economic policy issues in Nigeria today. In this paper, an economy-wide framework is used to identify the impact of removing the fuel subsidy on the Nigerian economy and investigates how alternative policies might be used to meet socio-economic objectives related to fuel subsidies. The results show that while a reduction in the subsidy generally results in an increase in Nigerian GDP, it can have a detrimental impact on household income, and in particular on poor households. Accompanying the subsidy reduction with income transfers aimed at poor households or domestic production of petroleum products can alleviate the negative impacts on household income.

Suggested Citation

  • Siddig, Khalid & Aguiar, Angel & Grethe, Harald & Minor, Peter & Walmsley, Terrie, 2014. "Impacts of removing fuel import subsidies in Nigeria on poverty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 165-178.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:69:y:2014:i:c:p:165-178
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.02.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514000950
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.02.006?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. Nwachukwu, Maxwell Umunna & Chike, Harold, 2011. "Fuel subsidy in Nigeria: Fact or fallacy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 2796-2801.
    2. Dartanto, Teguh, 2013. "Reducing fuel subsidies and the implication on fiscal balance and poverty in Indonesia: A simulation analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 117-134.
    3. Xavier Sala-i-Martin & Arvind Subramanian, 2013. "Addressing the Natural Resource Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 22(4), pages 570-615, August.
    4. Minor, Peter & Terrie Walmsley, 2013. "MyGTAP: A Program for Customizing and Extending the GTAP Database for Multiple Households, Split Factors, Remittances, Foreign Aid and Transfers," GTAP Working Papers 4321, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University.
    5. Arze del Granado, Francisco Javier & Coady, David & Gillingham, Robert, 2012. "The Unequal Benefits of Fuel Subsidies: A Review of Evidence for Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2234-2248.
    6. Birol, F & Aleagha, AV & Ferroukhi, R, 1995. "The economic impact of subsidy phase out in oil exporting developing countries: a case study of Algeria, Iran and Nigeria," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 209-215, March.
    7. Mr. Daniel Leigh & Moataz El-Said, 2006. "Fuel Price Subsidies in Gabon: Fiscal Cost and Distributional Impact," IMF Working Papers 2006/243, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Gangopadhyay, Shubhashis & Ramaswami, Bharat & Wadhwa, Wilima, 2005. "Reducing subsidies on household fuels in India: how will it affect the poor?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(18), pages 2326-2336, December.
    9. Minor, Peter & Walmsley, Terrie, 2013. "MyGTAP Data Program: A Program for Customizing and Extending the GTAP Database for Multiple Households, Split Factors, Remittances, Foreign Aid and Transfers," Working papers 283565, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    10. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Indicators 2013," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13191.
    11. Hertel, Thomas, 1997. "Global Trade Analysis: Modeling and applications," GTAP Books, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, number 7685, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Siddig,Khalid & Minor,Peter J. & Grethe,Harald & Aguiar,Angel & Walmsley,Terrie Louise, 2015. "Impacts on poverty of removing fuel import subsidies in Nigeria," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7376, The World Bank.
    2. Bah, Muhammad Maladoh & Saari, M. Yusof, 2020. "Quantifying the impacts of energy price reform on living expenses in Saudi Arabia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    3. Acharya, Rajesh H. & Sadath, Anver C., 2017. "Implications of energy subsidy reform in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 453-462.
    4. Erwin Corong & Thomas Hertel & Robert McDougall & Marinos Tsigas & Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, 2017. "The Standard GTAP Model, version 7," Journal of Global Economic Analysis, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, vol. 2(1), pages 1-119, June.
    5. Wang, Yanxiang & Ali Almazrooei, Shaikha & Kapsalyamova, Zhanna & Diabat, Ali & Tsai, I-Tsung, 2016. "Utility subsidy reform in Abu Dhabi: A review and a Computable General Equilibrium analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 1352-1362.
    6. Khalid, Syed Adnan & Salman, Verda, 2020. "“Welfare impact of electricity subsidy reforms in Pakistan: A micro model study”," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    7. Lindsay Shutes & Marijke Kuiper, 2015. "Expanding the household coverage of global simulation models: an application to Ghana," FOODSECURE Technical papers 3, LEI Wageningen UR.
    8. Scobie, Michelle, 2017. "Fossil fuel reform in developing states: The case of Trinidad and Tobago, a petroleum producing small Island developing State," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 265-273.
    9. Chen, Qiu & Huang, Jikun & Mirzabaev, Alisher, 2022. "Does fuel price subsidy work? Household energy transition under imperfect labor market in rural China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    10. Fahman Fathurrahman & Bora Kat & Uğur Soytaṣ, 2017. "Simulating Indonesian fuel subsidy reform: a social accounting matrix analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 255(1), pages 591-615, August.
    11. Muhammad Atta-ul-Islam Abrar & Muhsin Ali & Uzma Bashir & Karim Khan, 2019. "Energy Pricing Policies and Consumers’ Welfare: Evidence from Pakistan," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 24(1), pages 1-28, Jan-June.
    12. Saeed Solaymani, 2016. "Impacts of energy subsidy reform on poverty and income inequality in Malaysia," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(6), pages 2707-2723, November.
    13. Plante, Michael, 2011. "The long-run macroeconomic impacts of fuel subsidies in an oil-importing developing country," MPRA Paper 33823, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Paul J. Burke, 2014. "Green Pricing in the Asia Pacific: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(3), pages 561-575, September.
    15. Soile, Ismail & Mu, Xiaoyi, 2015. "Who benefit most from fuel subsidies? Evidence from Nigeria," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 314-324.
    16. Peltovuori, Ville, 2017. "Fossil fuel subsidies in the Pacific island context: Analysis of the case of Kiribati," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 102-110.
    17. Ilyas, Rubina & Hussain, Khadim & Ullah, Mehreen Zaid & Xue, Jianhong, 2022. "Distributional impact of phasing out residential electricity subsidies on household welfare," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    18. H. Xavier Jara & Marcelo Varela & Po Chun Lee & Lourdes Montesdeoca, 2018. "Fuel subsidies and income redistribution in Ecuador," WIDER Working Paper Series 144, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Pradeep, Siddhartha, 2022. "Impact of diesel price reforms on asymmetricity of oil price pass-through to inflation: Indian perspective," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    20. Henseler, Martin & Maisonnave, Helene, 2018. "Low world oil prices: A chance to reform fuel subsidies and promote public transport? A case study for South Africa," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 45-62.

    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:enepol:v:69:y:2014:i:c:p:165-178. 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/enpol .

    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.