Autor: Navajas Fernando*, Olguín Sofía**, Puig Julián***
Institución: (*)FIEL - ANCE, (**)UCSB, (***)CEFIP - UNLP
Año: 2025
JEL: H22, D31
Resumen:
We study a status quo in which the federal government provides electricity subsidies to a group of households by reducing wholesale energy prices, while subnational governments impose heavy taxes on all households with nodifferentiation. Thus, distortions arise from both precluding efficient wholesale pricing and allowing free taxation at the subnational level, with heavy burden and incidence effects. We contribute to the characterization and measurement of this status quo, and then evaluate a reform scheme that eliminates wholesale market price subsidies, which generates a rise in tax revenues (a recovery of previously foregone revenues due to subsidies). These revenues are used to reduce the tax burden on vulnerable households, along with some conditional transfers from the federal government. The reform evaluated amounts to moving from wholesale price subsidies, which fall on the national government, to tax expenditure subsidies, which are shared in a coordinated fashion among all levels of governmen