The proposal by Levy (2008) whereby a universal social insurance (USI) scheme is guaranteed to all workers, regardless of formality status, aims at abolishing the current contributory social insurance system and financing social insurance through value-added taxes instead (henceforth, the social...

Mexican public finances are weak; national tax collection as a percentage of GDP is among the lowest in the world. On the other hand, expenditure needs are enormous. There have been several attempts to reform our tax system but they have not been successful due to different factors such as...

Argentina had traditionally enjoyed one of the highest elderly coverage rates in Latin America. However, since the mid-1990s coverage rates started a steady decline, especially for low income workers. In response, the Argentine government implemented a series of sweeping reforms in the...

This paper examines the impact of the availability of fiscal revenues from nonrenewable resources on other revenues of Latin American and Caribbean resource-exporting countries. It compares the performance of nonresource revenues in these countries to that in other countries in the region. The...

This paper examines how a universal social insurance program proposed for Mexico can respond to cyclical variations in revenue while remaining selffinancing. More specifically, it discusses the issues involved in setting up a stabilization fund that can accumulate surpluses when revenue is...

This book focuses on experiences with and lessons learned from the sweeping reforms to the pension systems of Latin America and the Caribbean during the 1990s and early 2000s, which shifted the burden of old-age security from the public to the private sector. The book's main objective is to...

This paper analyzes the aggregate effects of a revenue neutral fiscal-cum-social policy reform in a typical developing country that consists of two main changes: (1) the implementation of universal social insurance to replace the current dual social protection system (i.e., a reconfiguration of...

This book focuses on experiences with and lessons learned from the sweeping reforms to the pension systems of Latin America and the Caribbean during the 1990s and early 2000s, which shifted the burden of old-age security from the public to the private sector. The book's main objective is to...