All right, let’s tackle it head-on: the famous, hotly debated 2008 paper by Santiago Levy “Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes” has often been touted (and not always fairly so) as evidence of that Mexico’s financing structure of social protection makes it attractive for informal workers to stay informal. A new counter-paper by Heintz and Ghosh, “Good Intentions, Better Outcomes”, seeks to reframe a narrative whereby unintended consequences can be avoided. After critiquing and largely debunking demand, supply and hybrid explanations of social protection-informality relationships, the case of Uruguay is showcased as an example where
formalization and social protection expansion can co-exist (including via the Monotax regime establishing a simplified and unified collection scheme...
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