Essays on the social and distributional effects of public policies

This Ph.D. thesis focuses on the social and distributional effects of public policies, whether these are intended or not. To address the topic, I categorize public policies along two dimensions. First, I distinguish between policies with explicit social objectives and those without. Second, I distinguish between policies targeting specific vulnerable groups and those covering the whole population. The thesis consists of three empirical evaluations in three different contexts and sectors. The first chapter analyzes the introduction of a public policy with explicit social objectives and an explicit targeting of the most vulnerable. I focus on the impact of a social subsidy on electricity prices on the likelihood of energy poverty of vulnerable households in Spain. The second chapter assesses a public policy with social objectives but not directly targeted to the most vulnerable population. I investigate the heterogeneous health impact of the introduction in Ghana of free health insurance for all children. Finally, the third chapter analyzes the case of a policy without explicit social objectives or targeting. In this case I evaluate the unintended distributional effects of the introduction of a railroad in Kazakhstan through its effects on trade by the local population.