Social Insurance, Informality, and Labour Markets PDF Download

Author: Markus Frölich
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199685231
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
This book reviews labor market and tax policies to improve social protection policies in middle income countries, mostly Latin America and Asia. It reviews existing labor market distortions in these countries and analyzes various policy options to help reduce distorted incentives.

Author: Helena Ribe
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821389068
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
This study highlights the interaction between social protection (SP) programs and labor markets in the Latin America region. It presents new evidence on the limited coverage of existing programs and emphasizes the challenges caused by high informality for achieving universal social protection for old age income, health, unemployment risks and anti-poverty safety nets. It identifies interaction effects between SP programs and the behavioral responses of workers, firms and social protection providers, which can further undermine efforts to expand coverage, summarizing evidence from recent work across the region. The book argues for a re-design of financing to eliminate cross subsidies between members of contributory programs and subsidies that effectively tax income from formal employment. It advocates well-targeted, tax-funded, tapered subsidies to provide incentives to the savings efforts of low-income workers, coupled with an effective safety net for the extreme poor who have no capacity to contribute to financing their own social protection arrangements. It also argues for the consolidation of programs and harmonization of benefits packages across different insurers. The book develops an overall conceptual framework and presents in-depth analysis of the main SP sectors of pensions, health, unemployment insurance and labor market programs, and safety net transfers.

Author: Omar S. Arias
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 082139911X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
What can be done to create more and better jobs in Europe and Central Asia? And should there be specific policies to help workers access those jobs? The authors of this book examine these questions through the lens of two contextual factors: the legacy of centralized planned economies and the mounting demographic pressures associated with rapid aging in some countries and soaring numbers of youth entering the workforce in others. The authors find the following: Market reforms pay off, albeit with a lag, in terms of jobs and productivity. A small fraction of superstar high-growth firms accounts for most of the new jobs created in the region. Skills gaps hinder employment prospects, especially of youth and older workers, because of the inadequate response by the education and training systems to changes in the demand for skills. Employment is hindered by high implicit taxes on formal work and barriers that affect especially women, minorities, youth, and older workers. Low internal labor mobility prevents labor relocation to places with greater job creation potential. Back to Work: Growing with Jobs in Europe and Central Asia asserts that to get more people back to work and to grow with jobs, countries, especially late reformers, need to regain the momentum for economic and institutional reforms that existed before the economic crisis. They should lay the fundamentals to create jobs for all workers, by pushing reforms to create the enabling environment for existing firms to grow, become more productive, or exit the market and let new firms emerge and succeed (or fail fast and cheap). They should also implement policies to support workers so that those workers are prepared to take on the new jobs being created, by having the right skills and incentives, unhindered access to work, and being ready to relocate.

Author: Arup Banerji
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821394622
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This book reviews the experience of workers in developing countries during the global financial crisis of 2009, asseses the recovery, and provides new evidence on the policy response that countries undertook in response to the crisis.

Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464804702
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Aging is a challenge which countries in East Asia and Pacific (EAP) regions are grappling with or will soon confront. It raises many questions for policymakers ranging from potential macroeconomic impacts, to fiscal challenges of supporting pension, health and long-term care systems, and labor market implications as countries seek to promote productive aging. The urgency of the aging challenge varies across the region, but it will confront all EAP countries in time and early preparation is essential to avoid the missteps of other regions. Live Long and Prosper discusses the societal and public policy challenges and reform options for EAP countries as they address aging. It aims to strike a balance between aging optimists and pessimists. On the one hand, the impacts of aging on growth, labor markets and public spending are not the unavoidable catastrophe often feared. However, minimizing the downside risks of aging and ensuring healthy and productive aging will require proactive public policy, political leadership, and new mindsets across society. The report reviews the evidence on demographic transition in EAP and its potential macroeconomic impact. It addresses the current policy environment including pensions and social security, health, and long-term care and labor markets to assess the risks of 'business as usual'. It also suggests policy directions to promote healthy and productive aging in EAP, and emphasizes that aging is not just about older people, but requires policy and behavioral change across the life cycle.

Author: Cheryl Williamson Gray
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821371827
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Worldwide experience highlights public finance policies that promote economic growth while meeting the need for fundamental public goods. Macroeconomic stability is essential, as large budget deficits retard growth, followed by moderate levels of public spending - around one-third of GDP or less - especially when governance and public administration are weak; that in turn requires efficiency, particularly in areas such as infrastructure, health, education, and social protection; finally, lower income and payroll tax rates can spur investment and employment. The Eastern European and Central Asia countries pioneered flat income taxes without generally suffering revenue losses as a result, but they have not addressed the problem of high payroll taxes and still face many hurdles in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending and revenue generation.

Author: Ana Maria Oviedo
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821379976
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description
This survey assembles recent theoretical and empirical advances in the literature on economic informality and analyzes the causes and costs of informality in developed and developing economies. Using recent evidence, the survey discusses the nature and roots of informal economic activity across countries, distinguishing between informality as the result of exclusion and exit. The survey provides an extensive review of recent international experience with policies aimed at reducing informality, in particular, policies that facilitate the formalization process, create a framework for the transition from informality to formality, lend support to newly created firms, reduce or eliminate inconsistencies across regulation and government agencies, increase information flows, and increase enforcement.

Author: Carmen Pagés
Publisher: Inter-American Development Bank
ISBN: 1597820849
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Traditionally, the concept of quality of life has been viewed through objective indicators. Beyond Facts looks at quality of life through a new lens, namely, the perceptions of millions of Latin Americans. Using an enhanced version of the recently created Gallup World Poll that incorporates Latin America-specific questions, the Inter-American Development Bank surveyed people from throughout the region and found that perceptions of quality of life are often very different from the reality. These surprising findings have enormous significance for the political economy of the region and provide a wealth of information for policymakers and development practitioners to feast upon.

Author: Agustin Velasquez
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498321143
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Hours worked vary widely across countries and over time. In this paper, we investigate the role played by taxation in explaining these differences for EU New Member States. By extending a standard growth model with novel data on consumption and labor taxes, we assess the evolution of trends in hours worked over the 1995-2017 period. We find that the inclusion of tax rates in the model significantly improves the tracking of hours. We also estimate the elasticity of hours (and its different margins) to quantify the deadweight loss introduced by consumption and labor taxes. We find that these taxes explain a large share of labor supply differences across EU New Member States and that the potential gains from policy actions are noteworthy.

Author: Solomon W. Polachek
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 178052787X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Informality and informal employment are wide-spread and growing phenomena in all regions of the world, particularly in low and middle income economies. This volume sheds light on the incidence and persistence of informality and the role of institutions and government regulations, and offers insights into issues such as how labor and tax regulations