The impact of the targeted subsidies policy on household food security in urban areas in Iran S.S. Hosseini a , M.R. Pakravan Charvadeh a, ⁎, H. Salami a , C. Flora b a University of Tehran, Iran b Kansas State University, United States abstract article info Article history: Received 14 June 2016 Received in revised form 30 December 2016 Accepted 11 January 2017 Available online xxxx JEL classification: Q18 I38 Ensuring food security is an important consideration in developing countries. It typically requires bringing people out of poverty and structural changes in the agriculture sector. A common policy tool to help reduce food insecurity is to subsidize food, but there have been insufficient analyses of the impacts of different subsidy regimes. In this study, we examined the effect of the implementing Targeted Subsidies Policy (TSP) on various food commodities on the household food security in urban areas of Iran. The changes in the elasticity of the calorie prices and expenditure following the TSP were considered for 13 food groups. The results showed that the TSP effect on food security in the urban households was positive for some food items (such as red meat and fish) and was negative for other items (such as poultry and cereals). The impacts result from substitution and complementary effects among the foodstuffs. Market regulation of the goods in the food basket of the country in urban areas is necessary and strongly recommended. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Food security Targeted subsidies Equations system Iran 1. Introduction The role of nutrition in health, wellbeing, learning, workplace efficiency and its relationship with economic development has been established worldwide (Carletto, Zezza, & Banerjee, 2013; Smith, 2013; Renzaho & Mellor, 2010; Fengying, Jieying, & Xuebiao, 2010). Achieving food security is increasing a development priority (Babatunde & Qaim, 2010). Despite efforts to fight poverty and hunger, there are still unacceptable numbers of people not having food needed for an active and healthy life (FAO, 2015; Deaton & Lipka, 2015). Recent estimates show that about 795 million people in the world (about one- tenth of the global population) are malnourished, with about 780 mil- lion of the malnourished living in developing countries (FAO, 2015). About a quarter of these poor and food-insecure populations live in urban areas (Ravallion, Chen, & Sangraula, 2007). Food security, as defined by the World Food Conference in 1996 and 2009, exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (Owusu et al., 2011). Food security is commonly described as requiring four attributes: food must be available, it must be accessible (e.g. is it affordable), it must be used well (stored and prepared and eaten in such a way as to provide nutritional benefits) and all these attributes must be stable over time (Carletto et al., 2013; Anríquez, Daidone, & Mane, 2013; Renzaho & Mellor, 2010; Fengying et al., 2010). The inter- action between these attributes is important to understand for deliver- ing food security. Food availability and economic access clearly interact: if food availability decreases, the price of the markets will increase, decreasing food access (Anríquez et al., 2013). The complexity of the interactions in the food system is illustrated in Fig. 1. Given the importance of ensuring food security, public policies often reallocate resources or targeted subsidies to vulnerable populations (Fig. 1). For example, several developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Zambia, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Iran, with different level of incomes and different economic structures, have tried to increase food security for their residents through the payment of subsidies (see, e.g., Farrar, 2000; FAO, 2015; Pinstrup-Andersen & Shimokawa, 2008). However, given the complexity (see Fig. 1), it is far from clear exactly how best to design an intervention that is efficient at achieving its aims and economical to implement. Often subsidy schemes impose a significant economic burden (Adams, 2000; Dutta & Ramaswami, 2004; Karami, Esmaeili, & Najafi, 2012) and are often mod- ified to reduce anticipated side effects and costs. In an attempt to understand the complexity of response to subsidies to improve food security, we address the case study of Iran's efforts to increase household food security. Targeted public subsidies on sixteen items and services subject to international prices in Iran officially started on December 18, 2010 as other subsidies were removed. In five years, Cities 63 (2017) 110–117 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: hosseini_safdar@yahoo.com (S.S. Hosseini), mpakravan@ut.ac.ir (M.R. Pakravan Charvadeh), hsalami@ut.ac.ir (H. Salami), cflora@iastate.edu (C. Flora). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.01.003 0264-2751/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities