• Impact of social protection programmes

Impact of social protection programmes

This document draws some lessons from the Tunisian experience of social reforms and associated civil conflict. The main focus is the riots that occurred after subsidy cuts and their possible substitution of price subsidies by direct cash transfers. Dial propose new welfare indicators apt to assess policy reforms in situations of fragile states.

Micro level data shows that the plausible policy decisions depend on parameters describing the balance between poverty and program exclusion risk. In the Tunisian case, only a much larger weight put on poverty relatively to exclusion could bring the decision maker to substitute the in force price subsidies with direct cash transfers, for fear of social unrest.

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