Person:
Cunha, Barbara
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Macroeconomics and fiscal policy,
Economic growth
Degrees
Departments
Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management, Europe and Central Asia, World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Bárbara Cunha is a Senior Economist at the Macroeconomic and Fiscal Management Practice at the World Bank. Her work focus on the links between economic policy and growth in developing countries, including analysis of fiscal sustainability, efficiency of public spending, tax policy, and trade agreements. She did her Ph.D. studies in economics at the University of Chicago and Masters in Economics at the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
Publication Search Results
1 - 5 of 5
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Publication
When Winners Feel Like Losers: Evidence from an Energy Subsidy Reform
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05)In 2011 the Government of El Salvador implemented a reform to the gas subsidy that increased the welfare of households in all but the top two deciles of the income distribution. However, the reform turned out to be rather unpopular, especially among winners. This paper relies on ad hoc household surveys conducted before the implementation and in the following two and a half years to test which factors help explain the puzzle. The analysis uses probit and logit models to show that misinformation (a negativity bias by which people with limited information inferred negative consequences), mistrust of the government’s ability to implement the policy, and political priors explain most of the (un)satisfaction before implementation. Perceptions improved gradually—and significantly so—over time when the subsidy reception induced households to update their initial priors, although political biases remained significant throughout the entire period. The results suggest several implications with respect to policy reforms in cases where agents have limited information. -
Publication
Trade and Logistics in Central America
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-02)Central America's trade has increased significantly in the past decade, in great part as a result of strong efforts to reduce tariffs within the region, as well as improvements in market access due to the entry into force of important free trade agreements. However, the growth of Central America's trade has not been as impressive from a global perspective and there is growing evidence that the gains from trade agreements and liberalization policies have been limited by transport and logistics barriers. Studies sponsored by the World Bank reveal that high domestic transportation costs, along with bottlenecks at land border crossings, continue to present large hurdles to intra and extra regional trade. Key factors that impede commerce include the lack of good-quality paved secondary roads, expensive trucking services, and lengthy border crossing procedures. Coordinated efforts to address these bottlenecks could help improve significantly the growth impacts of international trade in the region. -
Publication
When Winners Feel Like Losers: Evidence from an Energy Subsidy Reform
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2017-06-01)In 2011 the Government of El Salvador implemented a reform to the liquefied gas (LPG) subsidy that increased the welfare of households in all but the top two deciles of the income distribution. However, the reform turned out to be rather unpopular, including among winners. This paper relies on ad hoc household surveys conducted before the implementation and in the following two-and-a-half years to test which factors help explain the puzzle. The analysis uses probit regressions to show that misinformation (a negativity bias by which people with limited information inferred negative consequences), mistrust of the government's ability to implement the policy, and political priors explain most of the (un)satisfaction before implementation. Perceptions improved gradually—and significantly so—over time when the subsidy reception induced households to update their initial priors, although political biases remained significant throughout the entire period. The results suggest several implications with respect to policy reforms in cases where agents have limited information. -
Publication
Energy Pricing Policies for Inclusive Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-09-11)Government strategies for setting energy prices are not uniform across the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region—or even across fuels. Instead, they cover a full spectrum, ranging from discretionary price-fixing at one end to pure market-based approaches at the other. In between is a wide variety of other schemes such as price stabilization funds, import or export parity pricing, price smoothing through tax levels, and targeted direct price subsidies or vouchers. Governments in the LAC region, however, tend to be small as measured by government revenues as a percentage of GDP. So their limited government resources have to be used wisely and be better targeted to the poor and vulnerable. Although energy subsidies are an inefficient policy tool for protecting the welfare of the poor, energy price increases can have a big impact on these households. Energy Pricing Policies for Inclusive Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean finds that energy subsidies are highly regressive in an absolute sense—that is, the lion’s share of every dollar spent on keeping energy prices low benefits wealthier households. However, subsidies for fuels that are widely used for cooking and heating—liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, and kerosene—as well as for electricity, can be relatively neutral or progressive, implying that lower-income households capture benefits that are proportionate to their expenditures. In other words, although poorer households receive very little from every dollar spent on energy subsidies, that small amount may represent an important share of their expenditures. It is important, then, that governments expand the coverage and depth of their social safety nets to provide relief for poor households if energy prices rise. This report also finds that aggregate price impacts and the competitiveness effects of energy price increases are moderate to small and can be smoothed out through macropolicy responses. -
Publication
DR-CAFTA and the Environment
( 2011-10-01)The Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States aims to create a free trade zone for economic development. The Agreement is expected to intensify commerce and investment among the participating countries. This paper analyzes the changes in the production and trading patterns in 2-digit manufacturing sectors with the goal of understanding the short-term environmental implications of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement. More specifically, the paper addresses the questions: Did pollution increase in the period after the Agreement negotiations? Did trade and production shift toward pollution intensive factors? The results suggest an increase in pollution emissions in the post-negotiations period. The increase in emissions is mainly attributable to scale effects. Composition effects are small and in some cases (including Nicaragua and Honduras) favoring cleaner industries and partially compensating the pollution gains from output and export growth.