Labor Informality Effects of a Poverty-Alleviation Program

Leonardo Gasparini, Francisco Haimovich and Sergio Olivieri
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Francisco Haimovich: Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS) - FCE - UNLP

CEDLAS, Working Papers from CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata

Abstract: In the midst of a serious macroeconomic crisis Argentina implemented a large social program – the Programa Jefes de Hogar (PJH) – that provides cash transfers to unemployed household heads meeting certain criteria. In practice, giving the difficulties in monitoring informal jobs, the unemployment requirement of the PJH would imply a disincentive for the program participants to search for a formal job. By applying matching techniques we evaluate the empirical relevance of this prediction during the period of strong economic growth that followed the crisis. We find some evidence on the informality bias of the PJH when the value of the transfer was relatively high compared to wages in the formal labor market.

Keywords: informality; employment; Argentina; evaluation; program; Jefes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 D6 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2007-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dls:wpaper:0053

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