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Various pro-cycling policies emerged around the world with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. France experimented with a €50 bike repair subsidy. Our questionnaire survey (n = 7343) focuses on beneficiaries' sociological profiles. Despite its success in quantitative terms, the repair subsidy benefited more regular cyclists—who cycle daily—and people who are confident cycling in urban areas. Women were more likely to benefit than men, and people in low-income households more than those in high-income households. Because these populations are usually underrepresented among cyclists in France, the scheme may appear to have reduced inequities in cycling. However, the scheme could have reached out more to the low-income population who were largely unaware of it. This selectivity is partly explained by awareness of the subsidy, which is lower among the younger and the less educated part of the population. Our survey shows that the scheme is selective primarily because of its design. It would have been necessary to accompany it with measures specifically designed for vulnerable groups. • Bike repair subsidy has been successful in quantitative terms. • Bike repair subsidy mainly benefited regular, confident, and women cyclists. • Low-income cyclists benefited the most although they were poorly informed. • Access to information about subsidies is itself socially selective. • Although the scheme is based on equal treatment, it can hardly be considered fair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main motives for the Algerian government’s adoption of the policy to support oil derivatives were social motives that fall within the responsibilities that the state must undertake to achieve social stability. Governmental support for oil derivatives is in the interest of the wealthiest individuals; This is due to the high consumption of these derivatives. Lifting subsidies on oil derivatives will reduce costs, but it will not improve the standard of living of the poor, and if no corrective measures are taken for these policies, this will lead to a decline in the living standards of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty in India has been declining consistently over the years, yet it is home to 172 million poor people. Most of India's poor are concentrated in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture. This poses a serious challenge to the exploration of potential pathways that could effectively eradicate poverty and accomplish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We estimate the effects of various types of investment in rural areas in accelerating agricultural productivity and reducing rural poverty, and find differential impacts of investments and subsidies across low-, middle-, and high-income states. Private investment in minor irrigation, public investments in agricultural research and development, and subsidies on irrigation and electricity have the highest marginal returns in low-income states. Further, the payoffs from additional spending in promoting agricultural income are also higher in low-income states, suggesting targeting these locations with strategic investments and subsidies to improve agricultural productivity and reduce poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo analiza la eliminación de los subsidios a los servicios en Venezuela, incluidos los sectores de servicios de energía e infraestructura y la implementación del socialismo del siglo XXI. El artículo también analiza el colapso del sector petrolero, sus causas y consecuencias, incluida la reforma de los subsidios en diferentes sectores de la economía y compensar a los grupos de bajos ingresos de Venezuela.

The article presents an overview of the U.S. Lifeline program which provides a discount for telecommunication services to the indigent, and discusses its role in the Federal Communications Commission's goal to provide Universal Service to citizens. Topics include an overview of the Universal Service; Universal Service Fund created by Universal Service Administrative Co., which is funded by telecommunications companies; and a law in Georgia which charges Lifeline consumers to discourage fraud.

The political model chosen in Colombia to offer public housing to the poorest, involves the market taken as a regulator of the effective access to houses, exclusively following the private property paradigm. Meanwhile, it is intended to constitutionally grant the right to housing ensured also as a political statement. At the same time, the right to the city progressively makes its way into the international scenery as a collective precept; this helps visualize the conflict between the economic reality of the model and its social implications. Therefore, the text contrasts the concepts of private property, social utility; individualism, collectivism; and constitutional framework, supply and demand laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document assesses the performance of SISBEN as instrument for targeting health insurance for the poor, RS, since it was created after Law 100 of 1993. Evidence suggests that targeting of health insurance based on Viejo SISBEN for years 1997 and 2003 was acceptable. In addition, preliminary evidence available for 2007 shows that the introduction of Nuevo SISBEN corrected several of the limitations of Viejo SISBEN, improving the targeting of RS. On the other hand, we analyze the effects of households' strategic response to SISBEN surveyors and find that the better off households benefit more of it, making of strategic response a regressive tool that allows close to one fifth of RS beneficiaries to manage to get included even though they are not actually eligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In 2008, the federal government allotted $7 billion in child care subsidies to low-income families through the state-administered Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), now the government''s largest child care program (). Although subsidies reduce costs for families and facilitate parental employment, it is unclear how they impact the quality of care families purchase. This study investigates the impact of government subsidization on parents’ selection of child care quality using multivariate regression and propensity score matching approaches to account for differential selection into subsidy receipt and care arrangements. Data were drawn from the Child Care Supplement to the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (CCS-FFCWS), conducted in 2002 and 2003 in 14 of the 20 FFCWS cities when focal children were 3 years old (N =456). Our results indicate that families who used subsidies chose higher quality care than comparable mothers who did not use subsidies, but only because subsidy recipients were more likely to use center-based care. Subgroup analyses revealed that families using subsidies purchased higher-quality home-based care but lower-quality center-based care than comparable non-recipients. Findings suggest that child care subsidies may serve as more than a work support for low-income families by enhancing the quality of nonmaternal care children experience but that this effect is largely attributable to recipients’ using formal child care arrangements (versus kith and kin care) more often than non-recipients. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Public Distribution System (PDS) continues to be a major instrument of food security for the poor in the Indian subcontinent. This paper examines how efficiently food is being delivered under this food subsidy scheme and measures the extent of diversion of food meant for the poor. The study is based on a large primary survey of 12 states surveying 1,000 households from each state over six consecutive months. The findings indicate huge identification errors and incidences of diversion of food, especially in the case of households below the poverty line. The gross failure of identification of the correct beneficiaries in almost all the selected states raises a major question about the very genesis of this subsidy scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: We incorporate habit formation into an analysis of the effect of cereal price changes on the nutrient intake of the poor in China. We find that the poor’s nutrient intake responds asymmetrically to declines and increases in cereal prices, and that the asymmetric response of their fat intake may be due to habit formation. Our results also imply that introducing cereal price subsidies can increase their total energy intake by increasing their calorie intake from fat and protein, while ending such subsidies would insignificantly affect their total energy intake, but further increase their calorie intake from fat and protein. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Access to health-care is low in developing countries. Poor people are less likely to seek care than those who are better off. Community-based health insurance (CBI) aims to improve healthcare utilisation by removing financial barriers, unfortunately CBI has been less effective in securing equity than expected. Poor people, who probably require greater protection from catastrophic health expenses, are less likely to enrol in such schemes. Therefore, it is important to implement targeted interventions so that the most in need are not left out. CBI has been offered to a district in Burkina Faso, comprising 7762 households in 41 villages and the district capital of Nouna since 2004. Community wealth ranking (CWR) was used in 2007 to identify the poorest quintile of households who were subsequently offered insurance at half the usual premium rate. The CWR is easy to implement and requires minimal resources such as interviews with local informants. As used in this study, the agreement between the key informants was more (37.5%) in the villages than in Nouna town (27.3%). CBI management unit only received nine complaints from villagers who considered that some households had been wrongly identified. Among the poorest, the annual enrolment increased from 18 households (1.1%) in 2006 to 186 (11.1%) in 2007 after subsidies. CWR is an alternative methodology to identify poor households and was found to be more cost and time efficient compared to other methods. It could be successfully replicated in low-income countries with similar contexts. Moreover, targeted subsidies had a positive impact on enrolment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the duration and effect of child-care subsidy use among low-income working mothers in Wisconsin. Using an event-history model, the study finds that mothers are likely to cycle on and off subsidy systems and that their subsidy spells tend to end relatively quickly. Results from a Tobit model with a lagged dependent variable suggest that long-term use of child-care subsidies is associated with increases in mothers' earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem: Most housing programs in the United States do not focus on the most pressing housing needs. In 2003 more than 13 million households spent at least half their incomes on rent or the costs of homeownership, an increase of more than 35% since 1993. The vast majority of these households were poor. Yet housing policy has shifted away from deep-subsidy programs targeted to the poorest households toward providing shallow subsidies to higher-income households. Purpose: This article considers whether, given that the federal government is unlikely to increase funding for low-income housing, state and local governments are likely to increase housing assistance to the lowest-income households in the future, how such assistance could be structured, and how states and localities might be persuaded or compelled to provide this assistance. Methods: We examine the income distribution of households supported by major programs administered by state and local governments and the extent to which these programs target the poor and provide them with sufficient levels of subsidy. We reviewed program data reported to funding agencies and trade associations, census data on housing problems compiled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and data from surveys of policies and practices conducted by academic researchers and policy organizations. Results and conclusions: We find that the shift to state and local administration of federal funds has not significantly shifted priorities. We provide evidence that states are not using their discretion go beyond federal requirements, and are not serving income groups below those they are required to serve. Locally funded programs are less likely to target the poor than state or federal programs. Takeaway for practice: Rather than hoping for substantial local housing assistance targeted to the poor, we recommend making more effective use of existing federal resources. Research support: None. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public aid programs to subsidize the automobility of poor households are at the heart of a trade-off between three different types of concern: economic (promoting access to employment for active members of these households), environmental (cutting greenhouse gas emissions from cars) and social (ensuring that policies to control car usage do not penalize poorer households disproportionately). This article analyzes comparative research into the origins and development of such programs in three countries characterized by different levels of car dependence (France, the UK and the US). It shows that these programs, which are obviously useful to the households that benefit from them and, surprisingly, have largely escaped criticism despite running counter to policies that restrict the use of cars, remain of marginal importance in all three countries. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, auto programs are not an appropriate solution to the difficulties encountered by a significant portion of poor households and, secondly, wider development of such policies would constitute a considerable political gamble, especially as they risk destabilizing the mechanisms for funding public transit and weakening their social legitimacy. In the longer term, however, multiplying economic and fiscal methods of restricting car use that weigh disproportionately on the budgets of more modest households may necessitate a considerable increase in programs to aid automobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsidies to residential utility customers are important in-kind transfer mechanisms in developing countries. Do these subsidies reach the poor? This article finds the average targeting performance of water and electricity subsidies to be similar to that of other social-transfer mechanisms using the same targeting method. The most common form — a quantity-based consumption subsidy aiming to subsidise low-volume customers — is highly regressive. Many geographically-targeted and most means-tested utility subsidies are progressive, but still exclude many poor households. Connection subsidies are an attractive alternative in low coverage areas, but they will only reach the poor if utilities extend network access to poor households and if households choose to connect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use qualitative and quantitative data from a multi-year study of low-income families included in New Hope, an experimental anti-poverty intervention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to understand why low-income families’ use of program-based child care as well as subsidies offered to pay for such care is often low and/or episodic. Ethnographic analyses from 38 families in experimental and control groups suggest that child care choices and subsidy use must fit into the family daily routines and with the beliefs people have about child care. Both ecocultural theory and parents’ own reports of child care decisions suggest four themes accounting for child care choice: material and social resources; conflicts in the family; values and beliefs about parenting and child development; and predictability and stability of child care. Child care subsidy programs can be more effective if they offer greater flexibility and a range of options that better fit into the varied daily routines of the low-income families they are intended to serve. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Control over the urbanization process in South Africa was redefined after the mid-1980s, when the policy of ‘orderly urbanization’ replaced that of racially based ‘influx control’. In the early 1990s, under the inspiration of the private sector-funded policy think tank, the Urban Foundation, a standardized capital subsidy was introduced as a means of financing the orderly settlement of poor households on peri-urban land. Currently, the capital subsidy may be considered the cornerstone of the South African national housing policy. This article examines how the capital subsidy framework has perpetuated the practice of control by submitting urban expansion in the lowest income sector to rigid regulation. It discusses recent responses from various sectors of the South African society, while also examining how continuity in the intervention approach was maintained from previous decades. The article points to a need to depart from the capital subsidy framework as a basis for informal settlement intervention in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the implementation of programs to provide subsidized health insurance for low-income adults in the United States. Effect of the program on the health insurance status of low-income adults; Factors influencing the crowding out of private health insurance coverage; Impact of Medicaid expansion on insurance coverage for children.

Proponents of the spatial mismatch hypothesis argue that job decentralisation harms low-income residents of central cities because of barriers that limit their access to suburban labour markets. Such barriers can take the form of housing discrimination, exclusionary zoning or long and difficult commutes. This paper uses an urban equilibrium model of spatial mismatch to analyse the impact of commuting subsidies on the welfare of low-income, central-city households with restricted mobility. Specifically, it seeks to determine how effective such subsidies are at reducing the welfare impact of spatial mismatch. While subsidised outward commuting is found to raise the welfare of the low-income households, the welfare gains are only a small portion of the welfare loss due to spatial mismatch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article briefly discusses an article published in the same issue concerning sanitation for poor people and examined the relative benefits of financial subsidies, health information, or increased availability of hygienic latrines for purchase and found subsidies provided the greatest benefit.