This paper summarizes the main findings in a series of coordinated studies conducted to assess the impact of social security programs on the distribution of lifetime labor income in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay. The country-case studies find varying degrees of redistribution,...

We assess redistribution in the Uruguayan main pension and unemployment insurance programs on a lifetime basis. Using administrative records from social security, we simulate lifetime declared labor income and flows of contributions and benefits of affiliates to the programs. Expected present...

We estimate indicators of incentives to retire in a sample of individuals affiliated to the main Uruguayan social security program and we assess their impact on retirement and pension claims observed between 1996 and 2004. The implicit tax on work in this population is high compared to other...

In a paper on pension plans in eleven Latin American countries, Forteza and Ourens (2011) report two remarkable results: the rates of return are not sensitive to retirement ages if the number of years of service remains constant, and there are large discontinuities in the rates of return...

Social Security systems in Latin America prior to the reforms exhibited some problems that have been reported also in other parts of the world, including OECD countries. This is the case for instance of the increasing pressure that the pension system put on fiscal accounts. Other problems that...

Incomplete and highly fragmented work histories threaten to leave many contributors of the pension schemes in Latin America without the minimum pension guarantee or even without access to the ordinary pension. We propose a methodology to assess this risk, identify vulnerable groups and study...

Most public pension systems failed to build trust funds, even when it was clear that they were becoming unsustainable in the long run. It is argued in this paper that politicians ruling public pension programs have strong incentives to exhaust the trust funds, distributing benefits among voters...

The activity rate of mature men has increased in Uruguay in recent decades. This trend is remarkably different from what has been observed in most developed and Latin American countries. We analyze in this paper the incentives to retire implicit in the main social security program of Uruguay. We...

Armington elasticities of substitution – AEs – are a crucial set of parameters that allows CGEMs applied to trade to be operational. In the case of Uruguay, no estimated values for these parameters have been available until now, forcing researchers to impose them arbitrarily. We here start...

It is usually accepted that a pure NDC scheme is not adequate to protect individuals against the risk of poverty in old age, because it does not incorporate any redistribution of the system`s revenue. However, we show that insufficient coverage and weak social protection can be more seriuos...