This paper shows that workers who do not receive legally mandated benefits due to employer noncompliance have a negative view not only of their employers, as has been documented, but also of the State. Those workers believe that the State did not protect their rights, and hence they feel fewer...

Introducing financial incentives to increase productivity in the public sector tends to be politically and bureaucratically cumbersome, particularly in developing countries. Behavioral interventions could be a low-cost alternative, both politically and financially, although evidence of their...

Merit-based selection of bureaucrats is central to state capacity building, yet rare in developing countries. Most executives instead favor patronage -political discretion- in public employment. This paper proposes and tests an original theory to explain when executives forsake patronage for...

A large body of research has estimated the effects on tax collection of informing taxpayers of their obligations. This paper examines the effects on voluntary tax payments of providing taxpayers with information on their obligations that is collected through massive information cross-checking...

This paper describes the reforms aimed at simplifying the administrative procedures for labor registration and the payment of social security contributions that were carried out in Argentina in 2005 and 2007. Analysis of the legislation, as well as a survey conducted among accountants, reveals...

Seguro Popular (SP) was introduced in 2002 to provide health insurance to the 50 million Mexicans without Social Security. This paper tests whether the program has had unintended consequences, distorting workers' incentives to operate in the informal sector. The analysis examines the impact of...

We use a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium search and matching model with salaried employment and informal self-employment to analyze the implications of introducing universal unemployment protection for informal workers through transfers, which are conditional on participation in training...

The informal sector is an extensive phenomenon in developing countries. While some of its implications have drawn considerable attention in the literature, one relatively unexplored aspect has to do with the saving patterns of workers and firms and how these might influence aggregate savings and...