Social Spending, Taxes, and Income Redistribution in Uruguay

How much redistribution does Uruguay accomplish through social spending and taxes? How progressive are revenue collection and social spending? What could be done to further increase redistribution and improve redistributional effectiveness? A standard fiscal incidence analysis shows that Uruguay achieves a nontrivial reduction in inequality and poverty when all taxes and transfers are combined. Direct taxes are progressive and indirect taxes are practically neutral. Social spending on direct transfers, contributory pensions, education, and health is quite progressive in absolute terms except for tertiary education, which is almost neutral in relative terms. Specific suggestions for improving the effectiveness are suggested.