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数十年来，从埃及政府到印度尼西亚政府都对基本燃料进行补贴。这些项目的推行基本点都是好的，是为了缩减穷人的日常开支。而在石油生产国家，也让百姓切实地感受到了国家碳能源丰富的好处。但是，这些项目也造成了糟糕的结果：预算被打乱，经济结构被扭曲，环境被破坏。而且，就总体效果而言，也与其帮助穷人的初衷南辕北辙。
并不仅只是新兴市场的产生继而扭曲能源市场。就以美国为例，它通过限制出口来抑制价格的增长。但是补贴金在贫穷国家更明显。根据国际货币基金组织估测，这些国家每年所花费的5000亿美元能源补贴（相当于所有政府外交补助的四倍）中，中东和北非国家占了一半。这笔钱平均相当于其政府收入的20%。城市开车族的精英分子舒服享受了补贴收益。在典型的新兴经济中，最富有的五分之一家庭获得了燃料补贴好处的40%，最穷的五分之一家庭只得到了好处的7%。但是，在这种不成比例的情况下，此类补贴干涉造成的经济扭曲却由最贫困的人来承担。埃及政府在燃料补贴上的费用是其卫生费用的七倍之多。便宜的燃料鼓励了重工业的发展，忽视了能提供就业机会，使百姓摆脱贫困的轻工业。
FOR decades, governments from Egypt to Indonesia have subsidised the price of basic fuels. Such programmes often start with noble intentions—to keep down the cost of living for the poor or, in the case of oil-producing countries, to provide a visible example of the benefits of carbon wealth—but they have disastrous consequences, wrecking budgets, distorting economies, harming the environment and, on balance, hurting rather than helping the poor.
Emerging markets are not the only places that distort energy markets. America, for instance, suppresses prices by restricting exports. But subsidies are more significant in poorer countries. Of the $500 billion a year the IMF reckons they cost—the equivalent of four times all official foreign aid—half is spent by governments in the Middle East and north Africa, where, on average, it is worth about 20% of government revenues. The proceeds flow overwhelmingly to the car-driving urban elite. In the typical emerging economy the richest fifth of households hoover up 40% of the benefits of fuel subsidies; the poorest fifth get only 7%. But the poorest suffer disproportionately from the distortions that such intervention creates. Egypt spends seven times more on fuel subsidies than on health. Cheap fuel encourages the development of heavy industry rather than the job-rich light manufacturing that offers far more people a route out of poverty.
For all these reasons the benefits of scrapping subsidies are immense. Emerging economies could easily compensate every poor person with a handout that was bigger than the benefits they got from cheap fuel and still save money. In the process, they would help the planet. According to the International Energy Agency, eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies would reduce global carbon emissions by 6% by 2020.
Some emerging-market governments are persuaded by these arguments, and are getting serious about reform (see article). Indonesia raised petrol prices by more than 40% last year, and the front-runner in the upcoming presidential election says he will consider a more comprehensive fuel-subsidy revamp. Iran has just begun the second phase of a big subsidy overhaul, raising the price of petrol, gas and electricity. Egypt’s new president is being pushed towards tackling energy subsidies by a gaping budget deficit. Morocco and Jordan have cut subsidies in the past couple of years. Even Kuwait announced this week that it plans to scrap diesel subsidies.
Yet the politics of reform are exceedingly difficult. Politicians are loth to antagonise the urban elite; insiders benefit (often corruptly) from cheap fuel; ordinary citizens do not believe they will be compensated. Many previous attempts to cut subsidies have been abandoned in the face of popular protests or rising global oil prices. Experience suggests that any attempt to cut subsidies needs to be accompanied by a public-education campaign to explain the costs and inequities of subsidies, to have a clear timetable for gradual price increases and to be supported by targeted transfers to counter the effect of higher fuel prices on poorer people.
Even with better politics and the best-laid plans, it would be a mistake to expect too much too fast. Entrenched subsidies anywhere are devilishly difficult to get rid of. If the oil price rises, so too will the pressure on emerging economies to “protect” their citizens from dearer fuel. But, for the moment, there seems to be a chance to accelerate reform. It is an opportunity not to be missed.
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