Does Iran Really Spend 30 Percent of Its GDP on Energy Subsidies?

December 20, 2010

Dean Baker

That doesn’t seem quite right. But the NYT reported that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed that the country spends $114 billion a year on energy subsides. This would imply that the country spends almost one-third of its GDP on energy subsidies. That doesn’t seem plausible.