Subsidy Payments Research Articles

Payment rates and the stability of subsidized child care: Evidence from Minnesota's child care assistance program

Participation instability has been recognized as a major challenge in state child care subsidy programs and may undermine the benefits of these programs to the children and families they are intended to support. Payment rates – the maximum amounts that state subsidy programs will pay for child care in a given period – directly determine which providers are affordable to subsidized consumers and what schedules of care they can afford. Payment rates also affect the resources available to providers and their incentive to accept subsidies. This study examines the effect of payment rate increases on the stability of participation in child care subsidies and the stability of subsidized care arrangements. We study the impact of a major update to payment rates for the Minnesota Child Care Assistance Program, using monthly child- and provider-level administrative data and a quasi-experimental design. We implement a regression discontinuity design built on the state's method of setting county rates. We find strong evidence that higher subsidy payment rates lead to more stable subsidy participation and care arrangements. Thus, state-determined payment rates are a critical policy lever that affects access to care.

Permanent pastures identification in Portugal using remote sensing and multi-level machine learning

IntroductionThe Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a vital policy framework implemented by the European Union to regulate and support agricultural production within member states. The Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) is a key component that provides reliable land identification for administrative control procedures. On-the-spot checks (OTSC) are carried out to verify compliance with CAP requirements, typically relying on visual interpretation or field visits. However, the CAP is embracing advanced technologies to enhance its efficiency.MethodsThis study focuses on using Sentinel-2 time series data and a two-level approach involving recurrent neural networks (RNN) and convolutional neural networks (CNN) to accurately identify permanent pastures.ResultsIn the first step, using RNN, the model achieved an accuracy of 68%, a precision of 36%, a recall of 97% and a F1-score of 52%, which indicates the model’s ability to identify all the true positive parcels (correctly identified permanent pasture parcels) and minimize the false negative parcels (non-identified permanent pasture parcels). This occurs due to the difficulty in distinguishing between permanent pastures and other similar land covers (such as temporary pastures and shrublands). In the second step, it was possible to distinguish the permanent pasture parcels from the others. The obtained results improved significantly from the first to the second step. Using CNN, an accuracy of 93%, a precision of 89%, and a recall of 98% were achieved for the “Permanent pasture” class. The F1-score was 94%, indicating a balanced measure of the model’s performance.DiscussionThe integration of advanced technologies in the CAP’s control mechanisms, as demonstrated, has the potential to automate the verification of farmers’ declarations and subsequent subsidy payments.

THE SIGNIFICANCE AND ROLE OF LIVESTOCK BREEDING AS PART OF THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN PELAGONIA REGION

Livestock breedeing is one of the most important economic sectors in our country, directly influencing the overall progress of the agricultural sector. Its continuous development significantly impacts economic stability, food supply, rural development, and societal well-being. In the research, the objectives are clearly defined to provide a comprehensive description and classification of the conditions, current status, and possibilities for the development of livestock production. The main goal of the research is to identify the components of the reproduction process in the agricultural and food industry and their influence on macroeconomic movements. Various scientific methods were used in the preparation of the thesis, including analytical, synthetic, inductive, deductive, descriptive, and statistical methods. The most relevant conclusions obtained through the analysis of the results from the "Questionnaire" encompass aspects such as identifying agriculture as a primary source of income for many farmers, particularly in crop farming and livestock husbandry. Additionally, challenges like a lack of workforce, delayed subsidy payments, and issues with water supply for livestock hydration are identified. The significance of a strategy to protect clean water is emphasized as a response to the water scarcity challenge. The future of the agricultural sector depends on factors such as product placement, subsidies, timely payment for finished products, and ensuring the workforce, highlighting them as key aspects for the sector's future development. The research provides significant data contributing to the improvement of the current state in livestock farming, both in the Pelagonian region and in our country.

Equitable use of subsidized child care in Georgia

High-quality childcare services are vital to children's development and family wellbeing but are not equitably accessed by all children. In the United States, programs supported by the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) have the potential to reduce these inequities. Economically eligible Black children use CCDF-supported services at higher rates than other children, but less is known about disparities in the characteristics of those services. This study uses weekly subsidy records from Georgia's Childcare and Parent Services (CAPS) program to examine racial, ethnic, and geographic differences in the types, modes, quality, proximity, and stability of care and in subsidy payments, co-payments, and subsidy use. The study distinguishes between unconditional differences that it observes in children's experiences and conditional disparities that it estimates after accounting for children's needs and other characteristics. It interprets the conditional disparities as evidence of inequity. The analysis uncovers many unconditional racial and ethnic differences in subsidized care outcomes and several geographic differences. However, the study finds fewer (and mostly smaller) conditional differences, including very few conditional differences between non-Hispanic Black and White children. The results suggest that there is substantial racial equity in participating children's use of CAPS services.

Assessing the Impact of Fuel Subsidy Removal on Economic Growth in Nigeria: A VECM Approach

The yearly budgetary allocation on subsidy in Nigeria has remained a concern for policymakers and other agents of the economy as to whether it has achieved the targeted goal of economic growth in Nigeria. Thus, this study examined the impact fuel subsidy payments had on economic growth in Nigeria from 2005 to 2023. Secondary data were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bullentin, the World Bank World Development Indicator (WDI) and the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) working paper. The data were converted into quarterly data for ease of analysis and estimation. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate was used as the dependent variable while Fuel Subsidy Expenditure (FSE), Exchange Rate (EXC) and Inflation Rate (INF) were the independent variables. The long run relationship among the variables was confirmed using the Johansen Co-integration technique while the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) technique of analysis was adopted for estimation of the data. The study found that a negative significant relationship exists between fuel subsidy expenditure and economic growth in Nigeria within the period under study. The study therefore recommends a re-direction of government expenditure on subsidy to other critical area of the economy that can propel the growth of the economy.

Analyzing the Impact of Government Subsidies on Household Welfare during Economic Shocks: A Case Study of Iran

The study evaluates the effectiveness of Iranian government subsidies for households by comparing the welfare impact of food price shocks with the subsidy payments they receive. This helps us assess the government's efforts to reduce poverty in Iran. The household cost data in 2020 was used to calculate compensated price elasticities using the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QAIDS). Results showed negative and less than one own-price elasticities for all food items, with a sensitivity to changes in income greater than one for demand of cereals, cooking oil, and fruits. Then, compensated variations (CV) welfare index was used to evaluate the effectiveness of government support payments in reducing household vulnerability due to food price increases. The results showed that the CV fluctuates between 8.05-80.46 $ under different scenarios. In other words, consumers are in a worse situation in terms of welfare and their expenditure increases. The vulnerability index of low-income households, after applying different food price scenarios, is in the range of 1.46-14.67%, which is reduced to 1.35-14.53% by implementing the cash-targeted subsidy policy. In other words, the effectiveness of the government's subsidy policy of $19 per person could reduce the vulnerability of these households by only 0.14%.

“Two-Faced Janus”: Was Chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin in the Service of the British?

Reviewing the policy pursued by a prominent Russian statesman, head of the foreign policy department during the reign of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, Chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin, the author assesses his relations with the British ambassadors in the period between 1746 and 1756 somewhat differently compared to other historians. Great Britain, which was actively participating at that time in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), and then, preparing for the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), negotiated the lease of the Russian auxiliary military corps in exchange for the payment of cash subsidies. Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin played an active role in the negotiation process. However, whose interests was he protecting and was his service in a high public office entirely selfless? From the analysis of diplomatic correspondence between British ambassadors and the Secretary of State, the author concludes that Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin supported the British more often than not, as he was in the secret service of the British government. This is confirmed by the actions of the Chancellor, aimed at accelerating negotiations on subsidies in the interests of Great Britain, seeking to reduce their size, supporting the privileges of English merchants to the detriment of Russian interests, as well as supplying ambassadors with secret information about the armed forces of the country. The biography of the Chancellor, containing a number of dubious facts, such as documents forged by his father to prove the English ancestry of his family, an unusual acquaintance with the future King George I of Great Britain and service under him, receiving a permanent pension and expensive gifts from the British, suggests that Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin was recruited by the British while in the service of King George I, and therefore frequently acted in the interests of Great Britain.

Index Insurance for Forage, Pasture, and Rangeland: A Review of Developed (USA and Canada) and Developing (Kenya and Ethiopia) Countries

Index insurance for forage, pasture, and rangeland has gained ground in policy and academic circles. Stakeholders promote it as an innovative risk management tool for enhancing resilience to drought-induced perils and providing a way for consumption smoothing to livestock producers in drought vulnerable ecosystems. Index insurance, which avoids market failures such as moral hazard, adverse selection, and transactional cost, has been piloted and implemented all over the world. To support future development and research on index-based insurance in livestock systems, operational index insurance for forage, pasture, and rangeland systems in developed (USA and Canada) and developing (Kenya and Ethiopia) countries are reviewed and compared. This paper finds some similar characteristics (huge subsidy payments—ranging from 50 to 100 percent, significant government role, low adoption, insufficient payouts, data challenges, etc.), of this product between the two regions. A major difference between the PRF and NDVI is the number of choices available to users of rainfall index insurance who face close to 3000 choice options, while NDVI users have less than 5 choice options available for them. Based on these insights, we highlight opportunities where the two regions can benchmark and improve upon their respective index insurance schemes—index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) in developing and rainfall index insurance for forage in developed regions.

An analysis of the abolition of premium motor spirit (PMS) subsidies in Nigeria: a breach of social contract or climate change action?

The study examines the payment of fossil fuel subsidies made in Nigeria on petrol, with an analysis of the laws governing its payments. It explores the reasons for the removal of the petrol subsidy and examines the merits advocated by proponents of its elimination. Additionally, it investigates the diverse pricing methods employed for petroleum products. Employing a doctrinal legal research methodology, the article relies on the existing primary and secondary sources of laws to provide insights for the reforms. The study concludes with recommendations such as the implementation of a mixed economic system, reinforcement of trade laws, consumer protection and competition laws, improvement of transparency and accountability, promotion of investments in local refineries, adoption of cleaner alternative energy sources such as renewable energy sources by adopting the global energy transition agenda, and provision of palliatives. The findings unravel the complexities surrounding petrol subsidy payments which have occasioned corruption, rent-seeking activities and insufficient utilization of clean sources of energy. A significant gap exists in Nigeria’s energy sector compared to the selected case study countries. The study provides valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders. The recommendations promote transparency, and accountability and will facilitate the necessary reforms for sustainable downstream petroleum industry and global energy security.

Fuel Subsidy Payments and Food Inflation in Nigeria

Fuel Subsidy Payments and Food Inflation in Nigeria

Analysis of social investment in health systems reform: a case study of results-based financing in Marondera District, Zimbabwe.

suboptimal use of donor funds and poor health systems performance is rife across most developing countries; to address this, results-based financing (RBF) models were developed. However, it is imperative to explore the emic and context specific influence of results-based financing in health systems performance. This study therefore sought to explore the influence of results-based financing on health worker motivation and governance, temporal perspective, distributional principle, and policy coherence. Finally, the influence of results-based financing on interrelations across donors, technical partners, and health workers was explored. the study adopted a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, phenomenological design using audio-recorded face-to-face semi-structured interviews to capture diverse perspectives from the remaining and available two health financing experts, two technical partner organization representatives, and six health workers who have been implementing results-based financing from 2011 to 2022 in the Marondera district of Zimbabwe. Data was transcribed and collectively analyzed using NVIVO software. improved staff motivation, better governance, health system development, equity, and policy consistency were attributable to results-based financing, notwithstanding several challenges including understaffing, increased workload, procurement red tape, financial rigidity, and delays in subsidy payments, which eroded gains of better performance. Additionally, a lack of continuum of care due to user fees faced by the poor at higher levels of care, and limited engagement between donors and healthcare facility workers were also observed. Conclusion: reinforcing pinpointed positives is vital for sustaining realized health gains; however, urgent attention is required to address the challenges to safeguard the milestones achieved thus far.

Self-Adaptive Edge Computing Architecture for Livestock Management: Leveraging IoT, AI, and a Dynamic Software Ecosystem

The agricultural industry is encountering exceptional difficulties due to shifts in the macroeconomic landscape, and the prospects of the livestock sub-sector could be more precise. The elimination of subsidy payments due to agricultural policy changes resulting from Brexit poses a significant threat to farmers’ financial stability and overall well-being, jeopardizing their enterprises and lives. Farmers must pursue adaptive tactics to endure the consequences of evolving socio-political situations. This research investigates the capabilities of Dynamic Software Ecosystem (DSE) as an analytical tool in the context of managing livestock within the farming sub-sector. In Smart Farming, using the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain (BC) facilitates the monitoring of resources and ensures traceability across the value chain. This enables farmers to enhance their operational efficiency, disclose the source of their agricultural products, and assure customers about the output’s caliber. This study introduces a platform that utilizes the IoT, Edge Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and BC in Smart Farming settings. The Optimised Live Stock Management System (OLSMS) employs the Edge Computing Design to enable real-time monitoring of dairy animals and feed grain conditions. It guarantees the reliability and long-term viability of various production procedures. The efficiency of the Expert System is shown by its dependability rate of 92.3%, as determined by comparing its outcomes with those of a group of experts in raising livestock. The experimentation conducted on various scenarios has shown intriguing findings on implementing effective livestock management methods within certain environmental variables, such as weather and precipitation.

Subsidies and the income inequality in the Hungarian wine sector

The paper investigates the impact of different sources of income on wine farm total income inequality in Hungary using Farm Accountancy Data Network data for the period 2013-2019. The decomposition of the Gini coefficient is applied to focus on the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) shift from market to government budgetary support on wine farm total income inequality. Off-farm income has a rather stable impact on wine farm total income inequality. CAP Pillar 1 subsidies have remained more important than CAP Pillar 2 subsidies, both in the structure of wine farm total income and in the reduction of wine farm total income inequality. The most striking finding is regarding a shift in wine farm market income from a negative (losses) to a positive (profit) value and its increasing role in wine farm total income inequalities. The 20% of the largest wine farms created from almost 90% to less than 80% of wine farm total incomes between 2013 and 2019, but during the same period their participation in CAP subsidy payments was reduced much more from more than 80% to around 60%. Subsidies from Pillars 1 and 2 were reduced, and wine market income increased wine farm total income inequality, while it remained constant for off-farm income. The wine farm market income has driven wine farm total income inequalities. This might strengthen because of the ongoing market selection process with the exit of less efficient and loss-making wine farms and the increasing role of surviving profitable wine farms. This market selection process can be related to managerial, entrepreneurial, and innovation activities based on the differentiation and segmentation of wine farm products and their market incomes.

Effects of government policies reform on environmental sustainability: An integrated approach of PMP and system dynamics simulation model

The government's supportive policies in the agricultural sector may provide some goals intended by policymakers; however, they may have environmental, social, and sometimes economic inefficiencies. Therefore, policy analysis not only needs to examine the effectiveness of these policies from the point of view of economic components but also, in a more comprehensive view, should assess the impact of these policies on other aspects like sustainability. In this study, an integrated Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) and System Dynamics (SD) model was developed to investigate the effects of the agricultural policy reform on the cultivation pattern and water resources sustainability in the Doroodzan Dam basin in Fars Province, southern Iran, where managing water resources is a seriously challenging due to population growth and periodic drought. The initial investigation involved analyzing how price policies (guaranteed price and world price of crops) and non-price policies (removal of subsidy payments to agricultural inputs and improvement of irrigation efficiency) impacted the cropping pattern. The results of the study showed that the most significant decrease in cropland area occurs due to the removal of agricultural input subsidies. Although this crop pattern can lead to environmental sustainability, it is not considered from the point of view of food self-sufficiency. Based on the results, applying world prices increase cropping area for crops like rice, which is a water-intensive crop. Another point was the high priority of onions, fodder corn, and beans while they are not subjected to governmental pricing intervention. This may indicate the extent of public policies' impact on agriculture. Although under some policy scenarios changes in the gross margin or cropping area do not sound significant, the water-saving nature of these policies is more compelling. Finally, the impact of altering cropping patterns along with climate change and population growth on water indices was assessed using SD modeling. Thus, reforming the government's policies in the agricultural sector may help reduce the water shortage index in the basin. The policy of removing subsidies for the agricultural inputs led to the attainment of the lowest water shortage index.

Oil Subsidy, Corruption Risk, Midstream and Downstream Oil Revenue in Nigeria: Problem, Prospects and Methodology

The exploratory research identified the problem and prospects on the oil subsidy corruption risk and downstream oil revenue in Nigeria. The study focused mainly on the revenue generated from oil refining, storing, marketing, distribution and sale of petroleum products with the purpose of investigating Nigeria’s oil subsidy payments and its effects on the growth of downstream oil revenue and finding out if the level of corruption affects the downstream oil revenue sustainability in Nigeria. It is revealed that the following factors could explain downstream oil revenue and models are conceptualized that landing cost of PMS, poverty index, demand for local consumption, refining capacity and official pump price global oil price and exchange rate variation are probable significant variables in determining the volume of oil revenue in the downstream sector in Nigeria. A quantitative study and methodology are recommended to evaluate the impact of fuel oil subsidy and corruption indices on the dependent variable (downstream oil revenue) with a view to predicting and forecasting a sustainable and dependable oil revenue in refining, storing, marketing and distribution of petroleum products in Nigeria

One Price Fits All? On Inefficient Siting Incentives for Wind Power Expansion in Germany under Uniform Pricing

This paper evaluates investment incentives for wind power under two market designs: uniform and nodal pricing. An electricity system model is developed, that allows for investments in wind power capacities while carefully accounting for static transmission grid constraints. Wind power capacities are assumed to reach the same expansion target by 2030 under both market designs. The results show that the introduction of nodal prices leads to investments in wind power plants shifting to locations with lower wind yield. The amount of electricity fed into the grid from wind power plants, however, is higher under nodal pricing as curtailment is reduced by two-thirds. Furthermore, grid-optimal wind locations are shown to require higher direct subsidy payments but decrease yearly variable supply costs by 1.5% in 2030. Yet distributional effects present an obstacle to the introduction of a nodal pricing regime, with about 75% of German demand facing an increase in electricity costs of about 5%. To mitigate the distorted investment signals arising from uniform pricing regimes, restricting investments within grid expansion areas proves to be more promising than including latitude-dependent generator-component in the grid tariff design.

Subsidy Management: The Role of Government Refineries’ Commercialisation Using the NLNG Model

The continuous gulp of scarce Federal Government resources in Nigeria is worrisome, as significant proportion of NNPC oil generated revenue is absorbed in the form of oil subsidy payments while, abandoning a 450 thousand refining capacity project for importation of refined petroleum products. Hence the study into Subsidy Management: The Role of Government Refineries’ Commercialization using The NLNG model. Techniques of Autoregressive Distributed Lag was deployed to examine Oil price subsidy payment(OPSP) on corporate governance quality(CGQ), economic value added proxy of NLNG dividend payment to NNPC (Dv-NLNG); while controlling for institutional quality(ISQ),external reserves (ER) and output per capita (GDPPC).The estimate result revealed that lagged value of OPSP showed that continued disbursement of subsidy payments from Nigerian Federation Account results in promotion of subsidy regime without recourse to refineries rehabilitation. Corporate governance quality exhibited an inverse relationship with oil price subsidy payments. The weak corporate governance of NNPC pave way for harsh consequences of subsidy payments and unattended issues of moribund refineries in Nigeria. Dividend received from NLNG accounts for 53 per cent, on average, to subsidy payments and empowering refinery rehabilitation. Controlling for stochastic effects of Institutional quality on subsidy management as well as capacity to revamp refineries. The finding result revealed that, weak regulatory power and lack of policy transparency hampers refineries rehabilitation, and encourages continuation of subsidy regime in spite of the allegation of corruptions. It was recommended that, the PIA should be revisited with clauses with respect to the Board of the NNPC Limited, limiting the power and discretion of the President to appoint members of the board. In this way, the firm may be completely separate from any outside influence or financial ties, allowing it to follow the guidelines of good corporate governance

Can collective conditionality improve agri-environmental contracts? From lab to field experiments

Individual subsidy payments that are conditional on a collective contribution threshold could provide a viable resolution to the insufficient and dispersed adoption of agri-environmental contracts aiming at attaining environmental quality targets. Indeed, in a decontextualized laboratory experiment based on a threshold public goods game (TPGG), Le Coent et al. (2014) offer promising results regarding a conditional subsidy compared to an unconditional subsidy (i.e., the standard subsidy in existing agri-environmental schemes). In this article, we propose to improve the external validity of these results by transposing this laboratory experiment to a lab-in-the-field setting with farmers. To do so, we carry out a contextualized lab-in-the-field experiment with farmers by explicitly mentioning agri-environmental contracts and water quality. Our results show that farmers cooperate even more successfully than students and sustain more efficient outcomes over time. In a between-subject comparison, our results indicate that average group contributions under the conditional and the unconditional subsidy mechanisms are not significantly different. We find that this is due to two behavioral responses (perceived risks and initial beliefs on others’ contributions) in the conditional subsidy treatment, which show to have opposing effects on contributions that cancel each other out. The conditional incentive mechanism thus shows promising potential as a tool for agri-environmental policy since it avoids the pay-for-nothing trap of the unconditional subsidy mechanism without discouraging contributions.

Investment in Education in Nigeria: Barriers and Way Forward

This paper discussed barriers to investment in education in Nigeria. Secondary data were used in the paper. The secondary data were gathered from print materials and online publications. The paper identified the poor implementation of national policy on funding of education, subsidy payment, debt servicing, corruption, insecurity problems, fall in national revenue and revenue loss as barriers to investment in education in Nigeria. Based on these problems identified, the paper hereby recommended that government at every tier should implement the National Policy on education financing in Nigeria. The government should remove the subsidy and reinvest the funds in education, health and other sector. The government should reduce the rate at which they are going for both foreign and local loans to reduce the debt rate of Nigeria. The government should employ anti-corruption legal and regulatory instruments to fight corruption in the education sector. Government should improve the finance and accounts systems in the Ministry of Education to strengthen management and audit to improve accountability at national and district levels.

Land use classification over smallholding areas in the European Common Agricultural Policy framework

Land use (LU) monitoring and mapping from remote sensing (RS) data are relevant topics in Earth observation (EO). LU monitoring requires powerful/robust classification approaches able to provide reliable identifications in decision-making applications, even over challenging areas. The European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) promotes the use of remote sensing for LU monitoring in Europe useful in the compliance control of the subsidy payments. In this context, the present study proposes a novel classification chain to identify ten land uses, namely: forest (FOR), pasture with trees (TRE), pasture with shrubs (SHR), pastureland (PAS), vineyard (VIN), arable land (ARL), fruit trees (FRU), nut trees (NUT), citrus (CIT), and olive grove (OLI), over three areas in the Valencian Autonomous Region (Spain) where smallholding farming predominates. The approach exploits the multitemporal information provided by Sentinel-2 data using a novel spatial strategy specifically designed to deal with heterogeneous agricultural areas. More precisely, we implemented a deep learning algorithm based on bidirectional recurrent neural networks to account for complex temporal dynamics. The classification results over the three areas showed accuracies higher than 95.5% over validation sets composed of in-situ checks never used during the training process. The proposed methodology outperformed standard approaches that not consider the spatial variability of the training samples, and revealed very good agreement concerning the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) of Spain. In addition, the developed chain proposes the novelty of using the kernel normalized difference vegetation index (kNDVI) as a predictor in a LU classification processing chain. Including the kNDVI instead of the traditional NDVI outperformed the classification accuracy in all metrics and classes. Ultimately, the obtained classifications were used for assessing the 2020 farmers’ declarations in the three study areas. The declarations showed a level of agreement concerning the proposed approach near 99%.