Self-targeted food subsidies and voice: Evidence from the Philippines

•We examine a self-targeted food subsidy program in the Philippines.•Rice prices rose faster in poorer locations, and subsidized rice is an inferior good.•Yet, households living in poor communities are less likely to purchase it.•Suggestively, poor communities receive worse public services and have...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Food policy 2013-08, Vol.41, p.204-217
Main Authors: Mehta, Aashish, Jha, Shikha, Quising, Pilipinas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
Agricultural subsidies
Communities
Community service
Consumers
Correlation
Differentials
Education
Food
Food subsidy
Foods
Households
Income
Low income groups
Philippines
Public services
Quality
Rice
Self-targeting
Subsidies
Subsidies (financial)
Targeting differential
Voice
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Summary:•We examine a self-targeted food subsidy program in the Philippines.•Rice prices rose faster in poorer locations, and subsidized rice is an inferior good.•Yet, households living in poor communities are less likely to purchase it.•Suggestively, poor communities receive worse public services and have less voice.•This detracts from between-community targeting outcomes. This paper studies the targeting outcomes of a self-targeted rice subsidy program in the Philippines. We find modest within-community targeting outcomes, but weak between-community targeting. This appears to be because, controlling for the direct influence of household characteristics, participation was lower in poorer communities. These inter-community differentials are strongly correlated with several proxies for citizen “voice”, including education, income, and access to other public services. This suggests that self-targeting outcomes are not simply a function of the good selected for subsidy, but are also influenced by variations in communities’ access to usable services; that these variations favor richer communities; and that efforts to enhance consumer voice in disenfranchised communities would facilitate targeting improvements.
ISSN:0306-9192
1873-5657
DOI:10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.05.004