This paper assesses the effects of total public debt (external and domestic) on social expenditure worldwide and in Latin America using an unbalanced panel of around 50 countries for the period 1985-2003. The most robust and important finding is that higher debt ratios do reduce social...

This document is an update of an earlier study (Lora, 1997), which argued that the lack of direct measurements of structural policies had stood in the way of adequately evaluating the effects of the reforms on economic growth and other variables. The aim is to describe and measure the advance of...

This paper empirically explores the effects of payroll taxes, value-added taxes and corporate income taxes on a variety of labor market outcomes such as employment, unemployment, informality, and wages. Using national-level data on labor variables for 15 Latin American countries, the results...

Este sumário executivo apresenta a tributação como instrumento de desenvolvimento e não apenas uma simples fonte de receita. Aborda também algumas das áreas problemáticas nos sistemas tributários, tais como evasão, estruturas impositivas regressivas, e a incapacidade de usar os impostos...

This executive summary presents the argument for using taxation as a development tool rather than simply a source of revenue. It also touches on some of the problem areas in tax systems including evasion, regressive personal income tax structures, and the failure to use taxes to improve...

Latin America in the 1990s remains the most unequal region in the world in terms of income distribution. Yet because of its changing demographics -declining fertility rates and large number of young people entering the workforce- the region now has a unique window of opportunity to reduce the...

The 2007 Report on Economic and Social Progress in Latin America analyzes the nature and evolution of sovereign debt in Latin America and discusses the policies that can be followed by countries and international financial institutions (IFIs) to reduce the vulnerabilities associated with it....

Latin America suffered a profound state crisis in the 1980s, which prompted not only the wave of macroeconomic and deregulation reforms known as the Washington Consensus, but also a wide variety of institutional or 'second generation' reforms. 'The State of State Reform in Latin America' reviews...