The Incidence of Public Services and Subsidies in Peru

This paper studies the incidence of public social sector expenditures in Peru using the traditional methods of benefit incidence analysis and several extensions of those methods. The data in Peru are unusually rich, with information on detailed social programs and a series of representative surveys over time. The paper finds that the most progressive public services and subsidies tend to fall into three categories: those that have an obvious benefit only to the poor, those that are explicitly focused on poverty reduction and are controlled locally, and those that have very broad coverage