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Public Administration vocabulary · Public Budgets and Finance

Subsidy

Meaning in public administration, with examples

/ˈsʌbsədi/nounCommon term

In public administration, subsidy means: Money or other support paid by the government to keep the price of a product or service low, or to help a sector such as farming, energy or public transport.

In Turkish: sübvansiyon, devlet desteği, teşvik

How it is used

Governments introduce, pay, cut or phase out subsidies. Common types: farm subsidies, fuel subsidies, housing subsidies. The verb is subsidise (US: subsidize), and economists often debate whether subsidies are well targeted.

Example sentences

  1. Public transport tickets are cheap because the city pays a large subsidy to the operator.

  2. The report recommends replacing general energy subsidies with targeted help for low-income households.

Common collocations

  • farm subsidies
  • energy subsidies
  • phase out subsidies
  • targeted subsidy
  • state subsidy
  • grantAn amount of money given by a government or other body for a specific purpose, such as a project, research or local services, which normally does not have to be paid back.
  • public spendingMoney spent by the government and other public bodies on services, salaries, investment and benefits; formal texts often call it public expenditure.
  • budgetA plan showing how much money a government or public body expects to receive and how it will spend that money over a set period, usually one year.
  • public utilityAn essential service supplied through a network, such as water, electricity, gas or sewerage, or the organization that provides it, whether publicly or privately owned.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Public Budgets and Finance

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