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...

This paper analyzes the aggregate effects of a revenue neutral fiscal-cumsocial 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 paper examines the impact of universal health security in Thailand and probes the impacts of the 30 Baht health policy objectives, poverty and inequality. The paper begins with an understanding of health policy as couched in the broader perspective of social protection. An understanding of...

This paper discusses the political and institutional factors that shaped the emergence and consolidation of a universal health system (SUS) in Brazil after the transition to democracy in the late 1980s. It argues that a combination of political incentives and political, fiscal and institutional...

This paper studies the first large scale effort by the Brazilian government to increase the social security compliance of self-employed workers using behavioral interventions. In 2014, the Brazilian Ministry of Social Security gradually delivered by postal mail a booklet reminding nearly 3...

This paper reviews the development of social security provision in Indonesia, which has evolved from very little in its early years to the privilege of formal sector workers during the New Order period to universal coverage, at least in principle, in the current period. These changes were in...