February 2017

04Feb

The Impact of Taxes and Social Spending on Inequality and Poverty in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay (Spanish) – Working Paper 427

By Nora Lustig Using standard fiscal incidence analysis, this paper estimates the impact of fiscal policy on inequality and poverty in thirteen countries in Latin America around 2010. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay are the countries which redistribute the most and El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras redistribute the least. Contributory pensions are significantly equalizing in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay and also in Chile, Costa Rica and Ecuador but, in the latter, their effect is small. In the rest...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Regulation,
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04Feb

Financial Literacy and Financial Education: Review and Policy Implications

By Annamaria Lusardi In recent years, as workers have gained an unprecedented degree of control over their pensions and savings, the importance of financial literacy and financial education has increased considerably. Large changes in the structure of financial markets, labor markets, and demographics in developed countries have led to this change. Consumers have a bewildering array of complex financial products - from reverse mortgages to annuities - to choose from, making saving decisions increasingly complex. Knowledge about the working of...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Regulation, Savings,
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January 2017

12Jan

Financial Regulations for Improving Financial Inclusion

By Stijn Claessens & Liliana Rojas-Suarez - As recently as 2011, only 42 percent of adult Kenyans had a financial account of any kind; by 2014, according to the Global Findex database (World Bank 2015), that number had risen to 75 percent, including 63 percent of the poorest two-fifths. In Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, the share of adults with financial accounts, either a traditional bank account or a mobile account, rose by nearly half over the same period. Many countries in other...

January 12, 2017
Regulation
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