Self-targeted food subsidies and voice: Evidence from the Philippines

This paper studies the targeting outcomes of a self-targeted rice subsidy program in the Philippines. We find modest within-community targeting outcomes, but weak between-community targeting. This appears to be because, controlling for the direct influence of household characteristics, participation was lower in poorer communities. These inter-community differentials are strongly correlated with several proxies for citizen “voice”, including education, income, and access to other public services. This suggests that self-targeting outcomes are not simply a function of the good selected for subsidy, but are also influenced by variations in communities’ access to usable services; that these variations favor richer communities; and that efforts to enhance consumer voice in disenfranchised communities would facilitate targeting improvements.