缩小孟加拉国化肥补贴分析中的数据差距：调查估算方法调查

11377 Closing Data Gaps in Fertilizer Subsidy Analysisin Bangladesh A Survey-to-Survey Imputation Approach FNU JonaedIvan GachetLeopoldo Tornarolli Fiscal Policy and Growth Global DepartmentMay 2026 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11377 Abstract Bangladesh’s fertilizer subsidy costs $2.5 billion annuallyand accounts for nearly two-thirds of agricultural spending,yet its distributional impact remains unknown due to datalimitations. This impedes reform of a policy that may favorlarger farmers while crowding out investment in publicgoods, the real engines for long-term productivity growth.The study develops a survey-to-survey imputation methodto address this gap: the Household Income and Expendi-ture Survey 2022 records total fertilizer expenditure butnot subsidized types, preventing accurate incidence anal-ysis. The method combines cross-validated least absoluteshrinkage and selection operator regression with random-ized hot-deck matching to transfer type-specific fertilizerpatterns from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey2018–19 to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey2022. The procedure predicts household urea shares using 42 harmonized predictors, then assigns complete fertilizercompositions through nearest-neighbor matching withinwelfare-by-agro-ecological strata. The method achievesstrong predictive accuracy (test root mean square error =0.169) and preserves distributional properties. Imputedshares replicate donor patterns closely: mean urea share is51.5 percent versus 51.1 percent in the Bangladesh Inte-grated Household Survey, with overlapping confidenceintervals across fertilizer types and regions. The enricheddataset provides the foundation for assessing whethersubsidy benefits are concentrated among larger, wealthierfarmers or distributed more equitably across farm house-holds—a question that was previously unanswerable withexisting data. More broadly, the study demonstrates a scal-able framework for integrating complementary surveys indata-constrained settings. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Closing Data Gaps in Fertilizer Subsidy Analysisin Bangladesh:A Survey-to-Survey Imputation Approach FNU Jonaed,Ivan Gachet,LeopoldoTornarolli* Keywords: Fertilizer subsidy, Survey-to-survey imputation, Fiscal incidence analysis,Agricultural policyJEL Classification: Q18; C55; H22 1.Introduction Bangladesh's fertilizer subsidy represents the country's largest agricultural support program,accounting for nearly two-thirds of the Ministry of Agriculture's budget and approximately one-quarter of all public expenditure on food and agriculture. Its fiscal cost reached $2.5 billion in FY2023—more than double pre-COVID-19 levels—creating mounting fiscal pressures that crowd outinvestments in agricultural research, extension services, and rural infrastructure, which togetherreceive less than one-fifth offood and agricultural spending (Jonaedand Ahmed, 2025). Despite this fiscal magnitude, the subsidy's distributional impact remains poorly understood. Theprogram's universal, volume-based design links benefits directly to land size and fertilizer purchases,potentially favoring larger, better-resourced farmers(Gautam and Ahmed, 2019). Subsidization hasalsocontributed to imbalanced nutrient application,degrading soil fertility and creatingenvironmental risks (Beg et al., 2024; Hossain et al., 2022).Yet subsidies also shield vulnerable farmersfrom input price shocks and help stabilize food prices. Policymakers thus face competing objectives:protecting smallholders while reallocating scarce public resources toward more productive andsustainable agricultural investments. Assessing the subsidy's distributional incidence requires linking subsidy benefits to householdwelfare—the objective of the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) framework, which decomposes fiscalpolicy effects through comparisons of pre-and post-fiscal income distributions (Lustig, 2018). InBangladesh, the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2022 provides the standarddataset for CEQ analysis. However, HIES records only aggregate fertilizer expenditure and quantity,without distinguishing between subsidized types—urea, Triple Superphosphate (TSP), Muriate ofPotash (MOP