McCulloch Neil, Moerenhout Tom, Yang Joonseok
The Policy Practice and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK, Address: 67 Bicester Road, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, OX5 2LD, UK.
Columbia University and Senior Associate at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Address: 420 W 118th Street # 1410, New York, NY, 10027, USA.
Energy Policy. 2021 Sep;156:None. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112336.
Fuel subsidies in Nigeria are enormous - around USD 3.9 billion - almost double the health budget. Such subsidies come at great cost: the opportunity costs of such spending on other development objectives are large; the distribution of resources to the state governments is reduced; the vast majority of the subsidy goes to better off Nigerians; and cheaper petrol encourages greater pollution, congestion and climate change. Despite this, most Nigerians oppose the reduction of subsidies. We draw on a new nationally representative household survey that asked Nigerian men and women about their knowledge and attitudes towards subsidies. We construct and test a set of hypotheses about the factors associated with support for subsidy reform. We find that those who pay more or who experience less availability of fuel tend to support reform more. On the other hand, people who believe the Government is corrupt or lacks the capacity to implement compensation programs appear strongly opposed to reform. Finally, being religious and the delivery of reasonable national and local services also improves the acceptance of reform. These results support the idea that building a social contract is key to reform success.
尼日利亚的燃油补贴数额巨大——约39亿美元——几乎是卫生预算的两倍。这种补贴代价高昂：此类支出用于其他发展目标的机会成本巨大；分配给州政府的资源减少；补贴的绝大部分流向了较富裕的尼日利亚人；而价格更低的汽油加剧了污染、拥堵和气候变化。尽管如此，大多数尼日利亚人反对削减补贴。我们利用一项新的具有全国代表性的家庭调查，询问尼日利亚男性和女性对补贴的了解和态度。我们构建并检验了一组关于与支持补贴改革相关因素的假设。我们发现，支付更多费用或燃油供应体验较少的人往往更支持改革。另一方面，认为政府腐败或缺乏实施补偿计划能力的人似乎强烈反对改革。最后，有宗教信仰以及合理的国家和地方服务的提供也会提高对改革的接受度。这些结果支持了这样一种观点，即建立社会契约是改革成功与否的关键。
