Poverty alleviation strategies under informality: Evidence for Latin America

Martín Caruso Bloeck (), Sebastian Galiani and Federico Weinschelbaum

No 17583, Documentos de Trabajo from The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA)

Abstract: Strategies based on growth and inequality reduction require a long-run horizon, and this paper therefore argues that those strategies need to be complemented by poverty alleviation programs. With regards to such programs, informality in Latin America and the Caribbean is a primary obstacle to carry out means testing income-support programs, and countries in the region have therefore mostly relied on proxy means testing mechanisms. This paper studies the relative effectiveness of these and other mechanisms by way of a formal model in which workers choose between job opportunities in the formal and informal sectors. Although the means testing mechanism allows for a more pro-poor design of transfers, it distorts labor decisions made by workers. On the other hand, (exogenous) proxy means testing does not cause distortions, but its pro-poor quality is constrained by the power of observable characteristics to infer income levels. However, since taxation is necessary to fund programs, redistribution becomes less effective, especially for programs other than means testing. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these results for the design of more efficient targeting programs.

Keywords: Poverty; inequality; means testing; proxy means testing; Latin America and the Caribbean (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67
Date: 2019-10-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-iue, nep-lam, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Poverty alleviation strategies under informality: evidence for Latin America (2019)
Working Paper: Poverty Alleviation Strategies Under Informality: Evidence for Latin America (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000518:017583

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