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Informality and government enforcement in Latin America

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  • Rodrigo Ceni

    (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economí­a)

Abstract

This paper analyzes how the informality responds to the quality of the labor enforcement and the bundle of benefits that the formal workers receive in different countries of Latin America. Countries with different levels of informality were compared, highlighting the features that could induce these different levels. In a general equilibrium framework, the government chooses a level of government enforcement and a bundle of benefits maximizing the workers' utility subject to a budget constraint, a representative firm chooses the share of workers in formality and informality that they want to hire, and the workers offer a share of time in formality and informality. I estimate the main parameters of the model, the production function, the quality of government enforcement and the quality of benefits, for five countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay. Differences in the quality functions of the government enforcement and benefits are found, as well as in the fines established to enforce the agents.

Suggested Citation

  • Rodrigo Ceni, 2014. "Informality and government enforcement in Latin America," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 14-21, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    • Handle: RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-21-14
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    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12008/7148
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    Cited by:

    1. Alvaro Forteza & Cecilia Noboa, 2014. "Discretion Rather than Simple Rules: the Case of Social Protection," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0814, Department of Economics - dECON.
    2. Rodrigo Ceni, 2014. "Social security schemes and labor supply in the formal and informal sectors," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 14-12, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    3. Rodrigo Ceni & Gabriel Merlo, 2021. "Twenty years of job flows in an emerging country," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 21-10, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    4. Rodrigo Ceni, 2017. "Pension schemes and labor supply in the formal and informal sector," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-29, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Informality; labor regulation; enforcement; Latin America;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

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