2017年-世界发展银行全球_Buses_Houses_or_Cash____Socio-Economic_Spatial_and_Environmental_Consequences_of_Reforming_Public_Transport_Subsidies_in_Buenos_Aires_54页_5mb

Summary of "Buses, Houses or Cash?" – Socio-Economic, Spatial and Environmental Consequences of Reforming Public Transport Subsidies in Buenos Aires

Core Content

This working paper analyzes the socio-economic, spatial, and environmental consequences of reforming public transport subsidies in Buenos Aires. It evaluates three policy scenarios: the uncompensated removal of the transit subsidy, its replacement by a lump sum transfer, and its replacement by two construction subsidy schemes. The study uses the NEDUM-2D model, a dynamic land-use and transport interaction model calibrated for Buenos Aires, to assess the impacts across four dimensions: welfare, urban structure, carbon emissions, and redistribution.

Main Viewpoints

• High Transit Subsidies: Transit subsidies in Buenos Aires are among the highest in the world, amounting to over US$5 billion in 2012. These subsidies are often criticized for driving urban sprawl, diverting resources from system maintenance, and failing to reach the poor.

• Cost Recovery Fares: The paper investigates the effects of cost recovery fares, which would remove the subsidy and increase transport prices. The goal is to understand how these changes might be mitigated through alternative policies.

• Welfare Gains: Replacing the transit subsidy with a lump sum transfer leads to significant efficiency and welfare gains. These gains are equivalent to an additional US$325 per household or 1.75% of the average annual budget in 2014.

• Urban Sprawl and Structure: While the removal of subsidies leads to moderate reductions in urban sprawl, it also causes significant changes in the internal structure of the city, such as higher densities near job centers and reduced average distances to jobs. These structural changes help limit the increase in carbon emissions.

• Carbon Emissions: The removal of transit subsidies results in only moderate increases in CO₂ emissions due to the reduction in commuting distances. A targeted construction subsidy is predicted to reduce emissions by 0.7%, while a lump sum transfer leads to a more than 5% increase in emissions by 2050.

• Redistributive Impacts: The most significant negative impact of removing transit subsidies is on the poorest households. While medium-term adjustments in land and housing prices may mitigate some effects for tenants, they will further hurt homeowners, especially in areas with high home ownership rates.

Key Information

• Policy Scenarios:

  1. Uncompensated Removal: Leads to moderate urbanization reductions and limited increases in CO₂ emissions.
  2. Lump Sum Transfer: Provides efficiency and welfare gains but causes short-term redistributive harm to heavy transit users, particularly the poor.
  3. Construction Subsidies: Two variants are considered. One subsidizes a fixed share of construction costs everywhere, while the other targets high transit accessibility zones. The targeted construction subsidy is the most effective in reducing emissions.

• Model Used: NEDUM-2D is a dynamic, micro-economically founded model that captures the interaction between land use and transport. It is not a data-intensive model, making it suitable for data-scarce environments.

• Literature Review:

  • The Mohring effect suggests that transport subsidies can increase welfare by reducing waiting times and increasing service frequency.
  • There is debate over whether transit subsidies are the most effective policy for improving welfare, with some arguing that congestion tolls or gasoline taxes are more efficient.
  • Construction subsidies are less studied but are considered a promising tool for promoting compact cities and reducing housing deficits.

• Distributional Impact:

  • Transit subsidies in Buenos Aires disproportionately benefit the middle-income class rather than the poor.
  • Errors of exclusion and inclusion are significant, with a large portion of the poor not benefiting from transit subsidies due to low usage, while a substantial share of non-poor individuals do.

Conclusion

The paper concludes that while transit subsidies have been traditionally viewed as pro-poor, their implementation in Buenos Aires does not achieve this goal. Replacing them with lump sum transfers or targeted construction subsidies could lead to more efficient resource allocation and potentially better environmental outcomes. However, these reforms may have complex and uneven distributional impacts, particularly on the poorest households and homeowners in certain areas. The study underscores the importance of considering both the efficiency and distributional aspects of transport and construction subsidies in urban policy design.