Publication: Global Landscape of Fuel Subsidies and Price Controls
Abstract
Oil price increases that began in late 2020 have led to a global proliferation of liquid fuel subsidies and price controls, as governments sought to reduce, redistribute, or delay the impact of rising and volatile energy prices on consumers. This report draws on two new global databases developed by the World Bank to examine petroleum product pricing regimes and consumer price subsidies implemented in 154 economies since 2021. It provides valuable findings and actionable insights to help policymakers in their ongoing efforts to reform fuel pricing mechanisms and phase out subsidies.
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“World Bank. 2025. Global Landscape of Fuel Subsidies and Price Controls. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43266 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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Recent experience suggests that regular and frequent price adjustments, however small—as in Jordan and Morocco—help the government and consumers to get accustomed to fluctuations in world fuel prices and exchange rates. By contrast, freezing prices, even for a few months—for socioeconomic considerations or because the needed adjustments are small enough to be absorbed—increases the risk of reversion to ad hoc pricing and price subsidies. The more formally the decision to move to market-based pricing is communicated, the more public new price announcements, and the higher the frequency of price changes, the more likely the implementation of the announced pricing policy reform will be sustained.Publication United Mexican States Reducing Fuel Subsidies(Washington, DC, 2013-05)This paper analyzes the economic, distributional, and environmental impact that energy subsidy reductions and alternative compensating mechanisms might have in Mexico. 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The introduction of a new oil and gas law in 2001 (the law) provides the policy and legal basis for moving away from the present ineffective and fiscally inefficient fuel pricing and subsidy regime, towards the goal of an independent, reliable, transparent, competitive, efficient, and environmentally friendly petroleum sector that encourages the growth of the national potential and role and at the same time does not exclude the Government of Indonesia (GoI) fully meeting its social responsibility towards certain community groups. Implementation towards achieving the goals set out in the Law has been slow and hesitant. The Indonesian treasury is still saddled with a rather inefficient and ineffective fuel pricing and subsidies regime. This present report identifies a way forward for Indonesia to meet the requirements of the Law. 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