Joint Seminars General seminars amse seminar

Francis Annan

UC Berkeley

Redistributing Transportation Costs

Joint with Abdoulaye Ndiaye

Venue: Îlot Bernard du Bois - Amphithéâtre
AMU - AMSE
5-9 boulevard Maurice Bourdet
13001 Marseille
Date(s): Monday, May 12 2025
11:30am to 12:45pm
Contact(s): Nicolas Clootens: nicolas.clootens[at]univ-amu.fr
Timothée Demont: timothee.demont[at]univ-amu.fr
Habiba Djebbari: habiba.djebbari[at]univ-amu.fr
Romain Ferrali: romain.ferrali[at]univ-amu.fr
More information: Francis Annan's personal website

Abstract

When poverty is correlated with supply costs across space, firms may charge the poor higher prices. To resolve such inequality, the government, for example, can provide transportation subsidies to firms. How might such government programs be designed? What issues arise in the government’s interaction with firms? And what are the welfare effects of monitoring firms? We study these issues by examining Ghana's Unified Petroleum Pricing Fund Program -- the only scalable program we know of in the world that redistributes transportation costs to resolve inequalities.