User:Colinlockwood88/sandbox

A subsidy is a form of financial or in kind support extended to an economic sector (or institution, business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting beneficial economic and social outcomes. Although commonly extended from Government, the term subsidy can relate to any type of support - for example from NGOs or implicit subsidies. Subsidies have a long track record and today come in various forms including: direct (cash grants, interest-free loans), indirect (tax breaks, insurance, low-interest loans, depreciation write-offs, rent rebates). Furthermore, they can be broad or narrow, legal or illegal, ethical or unethical. The most common forms of subsidies are those to the producer or the consumer. Producer/Production subsidies ensure producers are better off by either supplying market price support, direct support, or payments to factors of production. Consumer/Consumption subsidies commonly reduce the price of goods and services to the consumer, for example in the US at one time it was cheaper to buy petrol than bottled water.

Subsidies can be hugely important. They are designed to overcome deficiencies in the marketplace, support disadvantaged parts of society, and positively distort activities such as pushes towards renewable energy, recycling and agricultural set-asides. Simply put they represent an attempt by Governments to control the behaviour of individuals, businesses and larger groups by offering or exacting economic benefits/taxes. Other benefits may spin off, primarily as subsidies may act as a form of protectionism or trade barrier to foreign imports thus protecting domestic goods and services.

Producer/Production Subsidy
A production subsidy encourages suppliers to increase the output of a particular product by partially offsetting the production costs or losses. The objective of production subsidies is to expand production of a particular product more so than the market would promote but without rising the final price to consumers. This type of subsidy is predominantly found in developed markets. Other examples of production subsidies include the assistance in the creation of a new firm (Enterprise Investment Scheme), industry (Industrial Policy) and even the development of certain areas (Regional Policy). Production subsidies are critically discussed in the literature as they can cause many problems including the additional cost of storing the extra produced products, depressing world market prices, and incentivising producers to over-produce - for example a farmer over-producing in terms of his land’s carrying capacity.

Consumer/Consumption Subsidy
A consumption subsidy is one that subsidises the behaviour of consumers. These type of subsidies are most common in developing countries where Governments subsidise such things as food, water, electricity and education on the basis that no matter how impoverished, all should be allowed those most basic requirements. For example, some Governments offer ‘lifetime’ rates for electricity, that is, the first increment of electricity each month is subsidised.

Export Subsidy
An export subsidy is a support from the government for products that are exported, as a means of assisting the country’s balance of payments. Usha Haley and George Haley identified the subsidies to manufacturing industry provided by the Chinese Government and how they have altered trade patterns. Traditionally, economists have argued that subsidies benefit consumers but hurt the subsidizing countries. Usha and Haley provided data to show that over the decade after China joined the World Trade Organization industrial subsidies have helped give China an advantage in industries in which they previously enjoyed no comparative advantage such as the steel, glass, paper, auto parts, and solar industries.

Employment Subsidy
An employment subsidy serves as an incentive to businesses to provide more job opportunities to reduce the level of unemployment in the country (income subsidies) or to encourage research and development.[4] With an employment subsidy, the government provides assistance with wages. Another form of employment subsidy is the social security benefits. Employment subsidies allow a person receiving the benefit to enjoy some minimum standard of living.

Environmental Externalities
As well as the conventional and formal subsidies as outlined above there are myriad implicit subsidies principally in the form of environmental externalities. These subsidies include anything that is emitted but not accounted for and thus is an externality. These include things such as car drivers who pollute everyone’s atmosphere without compensating everyone, farmers who use pesticides which can pollute everyone’s ecosystems again without compensating everyone or Britain’s electricity production which results in additional acid rain in Scandinavia. In these examples the polluter is effectively gaining a net benefit but not compensating those affected. Although they are not subsidies in the form of direct economic support from the Government, they are no less economically, socially and environmentally harmful.

Broad and Narrow
These various subsidies can be divided into ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’. Narrow subsidies are those monetary transfers that are easily identifiable and have a clear intent. They are commonly characterised by a monetary transfer between Governments and institutions or businesses and individuals. A classic example is a Government payment to a farmer.

Conversely broad subsidies include both monetary and non-monetary subsidies and is often difficult to identify. A broad subsidy is less attributable and less transparent. Environmental externalities are the most common type of broad subsidy.

Definition
Although subsidies can be important many are ‘perverse’. To be ‘perverse’, subsidies must exert effects that are demonstrably and significantly adverse both economically and environmentally. A subsidy rarely, if ever, starts perverse, but over time an legitimate efficacious subsidy can become perverse or illegitimate if it is not withdrawn after meeting its goal or as political goals change. Perverse subsidies are now so widespread that as of 2007 they amounted $2 trillion per year in the six most subsidised sectors alone (agriculture, fossil fuels, road transportation, water, fisheries and forestry).

The effects
The detrimental effects of perverse subsidies are diverse in nature and reach. Case-studies from differing sectors are highlighted below but can be summarised as follows. Directly, they are expensive to Governments directing resources away from other legitimate priorities (biodiversity and conservation is commonly discussed). Indirectly, they: cause environmental degradation - exploitation of resources, pollution, loss of landscape, misuse and overuse of supplies - which, as well as its fundamental damage, acts as a further brake on economies; tend to benefit the few at the expense of the many, and the rich at the expense of the poor; lead to further polarization of development between the Northern and Southern hemispheres; lower global market prices; and undermine investment decisions reducing the pressure on businesses to become more efficient. Over time the latter effect means support becomes enshrined in human behaviour and business decisions to the point where people become reliant on, even addicted to, subsidies, ‘locking’ them into society. Consumer attitudes do not change and become out of date, off target and inefficient, and furthermore, over time people feel a sense of historical right to them. Despite Governments being responsible for the creation and (lack of) termination of subsidies, it is ironic that perverse subsidies are not tackled more rigorously, particularly as the above highlight their contradiction to the majority of Governments’ stated policies.

Implementation
Perverse subsidies are not tackled as robustly as they should. Principally this because they become ‘locked’ into society, causing bureaucratic roadblocks and institutional inertia. When cuts are suggested many argue (most fervently by those ‘entitled’, special interest groups and political lobbyists) that it will disrupt and harm the lives of people who receive them, distort domestic competitiveness curbing trade opportunities, and increase unemployment. Individual governments recognise this as a ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ - inasmuch that even if they wanted to adopt subsidy reform, by acting unilaterally they fear only negative effects will ensue if others do not follow. Furthermore, cutting subsidies, however perverse they may be, is considered a vote-losing policy.

Reform of perverse subsidies is at a propitious time. The current economic conditions mean governments are forced into fiscal constraints and are looking for ways to reduce activist roles in their economies. There are two main reform paths: unilateral and multilateral. Unilateral agreements (one country) are less likely to be undertaken for the reasons outlined above although New Zealand (see ), Russia, Bangladesh and others represent successful examples. Multilateral actions by several countries are more likely to succeed as this reduces competitiveness concerns, but are more complex to implement requiring greater international collaboration through a body such as the WTO. Irrespective of the path the aim of policymakers should be to: create alternative policies that target the same issue as the original subsidies but better; develop subsidy removal strategies allowing market-discipline to return; introduce ‘sunset’ provisions that require remaining subsidies to be re-justified periodically; and make perverse subsidies more transparent to taxpayers to alleviate the ‘vote-loser’ concern.

Agricultural Subsidies
Support for agriculture dates back to the 19th century. It was developed extensively in the EU and USA across the two World Wars and the Great Depression to protect domestic food production, but remains important across the world today. In 2005, US farmers received $14 billion and EU farmers $47 billion in agricultural subsidies. Today, agricultural subsidies are defended on the grounds of helping farmers to maintain their livelihoods. While this is a noble aim, the majority of payments are based on outputs and inputs and thus favour the larger producing agribusinesses over the small scale farmers. In the USA nearly 30% of payments go to the top 2% of farmers.

By subsidising inputs and outputs through such schemes as ‘yield based subsidisation’, farmers are encouraged to: over-produce using intensive methods including using more fertilizers and pesticides; grow high-yielding monocultures; reduce crop rotation; shorten fallow periods; and promote exploitative land use change from forests, rainforests and wetlands to agricultural land. These all lead to severe environmental degradation including adverse effects on: soil quality and productivity including erosion, nutrient supply and salinity which in turn affects carbon storage and cycling, water retention and drought resistance; water quality including pollution, nutrient deposition and eutrophication of waterways, and lowering of water tables; diversity of flora and fauna including indigenous species both directly and indirectly through the destruction of habitats, resulting in a genetic wipe-out.

Cotton growers in the US reportedly receive half their income from the government under the Farm Bill of 2002. The subsidy payments stimulated overproduction and resulted in a record cotton harvest in 2002, much of which had to be sold at very reduced prices in the global market. For foreign producers, the depressed cotton price lowered their prices far below the break-even price. In fact, African farmers received 35 to 40 cents per pound for cotton, while US cotton growers, backed by government agricultural payments, received 75 cents per pound. Developing countries and trade organizations argue that poorer countries should be able to export their principal commodities to survive, but protectionist laws and payments in the United States and Europe prevent these countries from engaging in international trade opportunities.

Fisheries
Today, much of the world’s major fisheries are overexploited - in 2002 the WWF estimate this at approximately 75%. Fishing subsidies include: “direct assistant to fishers; loan support programs; tax preferences and insurance support; capital and infrastructure programs; marketing and price support programs; and fisheries management, research, and conservation programs”. These promote the expansion of fishing fleets, the supply of larger and longer nets, larger yields and indiscriminate catch, as well as mitigating risks which encourages further investment into large-scale operations to the disfavour of the already struggling small-scale industry. Collectively, these result in the continued overcapitalization and overfishing of marine fisheries.

Others
With the National Football League (NFL) profit topping records at $11 billion, the highest of all sports. Attention is beginning to look at the NFL's tax-exemption status and all the stadiums built through tax-free borrowing by the cities, resulting from subsidies out of the pockets of every American taxpayer.

The Commitment to Development Index, published by the Center for Global Development, measures the effect that subsidies and trade barriers actually have on the undeveloped world. It uses trade along with six other components such as aid or investment to rank and evaluate developed countries on policies that affect the undeveloped world. It finds that the richest countries spend $106 billion per year subsidizing their own farmers - almost exactly as much as they spend on foreign aid.