Providing unemployment insurance is particularly problematic in countries with high informality because workers can claim unemployment benefits and work in the informal sector at the same time. This paper proposes a method to evaluate alternative schemes to provide insurance for unemployed...

We study the impact of welfare payments in Ecuador on the probability that women and men work, and on whether they are employed in the formal or informal sectors. Our analysis is based on two distinct identification strategies and two separate sources of data spanning more than 10 years. We find...

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to study the impacts of a noncontributory pension program covering one-third of Bolivian households during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the program was not designed to provide emergency assistance, it took on additional importance during the...

Latin America and the Caribbean must respond to the challenge of climate change while making progress with other sustainable development goals. How much will it cost to meet climate change goals in this context? This work reviews the evidence on the costs of meeting the goals the goals of the...

We study the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the pension policy response on the private and public pension systems of Peru. We find that the policies allowing early withdrawals from the private pension balances imply a significant reduction in expected pension wealth by about 40 people, yet...

Using an impact evaluation methodology for interrupted time-series and the IDB Pension Projection Model, this study estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic could have notably effects on the private pension system in El Salvador as a consequence of the relaxation of requirements to repay early...

The Chilean pension system was hit hard during 2020-2021 by the withdrawal of 25 per cent of the individual pensions funds accumulated by 2019, an amount equivalent to 20 per cent of Chile's GDP. We estimate here the impact of those withdrawals on new pension allowances, using a combination of...

Latin America and the Caribbean must respond to the challenge of climate change while making progress with other sustainable development goals. How much will it cost to meet climate change goals in this context? This work reviews the evidence on the costs of meeting the goals the goals of the...

This paper examines the implicit subsidies within pension systems across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. We first calculate the theoretical benefits of pension for hypothetical workers in 25 countries in LAC. We show that, on average, LAC's pension systems are subsidized, as they...

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...