Rethinking Taxation for Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean Objectives, Behavioral Responses, and Technological Advances by Guillermo Vuletin published by World bank Group (11/2025).
Governments tax to raise revenue to fund public spending and the provision of social services to their citizens. In selecting the optimal set of tax instruments to achieve this objective, tax policy has traditionally focused on the trade-off between collection efficiency and the pursuit of equity. This report aims to enrich the debate in two key ways. First, it examines how the behavioral responses of those who are taxed and recent technological advances may affect this traditionally viewed trade-off. Second, it introduces a previously understressed trade-off with a third critical goal—economic growth—in which the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region persistently underperforms.
