Person:
Packard, Truman

Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice
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Author Name Variants
Truman, Truman Gregory, Truman, Truman G., Truman, Truman
Fields of Specialization
Labor economics, Social insurance, Public sector economics
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Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice
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Last updated:October 2, 2025
Biography
Truman G. Packard joined the World Bank in 1997 and is currently a Lead Economist in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice, working on labor market policy in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. His prior assignment was providing social protection and jobs policy assistance to Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, and to lead the World Bank team that delivered the regional report “East Asia Pacific at Work: Employment, Enterprise and Wellbeing” in 2014. He also served on the teams that produced “Golden Growth: Restoring the Lustre of the European Economic Model” published in 2012 and the World Development Report 2009 "Reshaping Economic Geography". Truman led the World Bank's Human Development program in the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste, and has been part of teams delivering financial and knowledge-transfer services to governments in Europe and Central Asia, East Asia Pacific and in Latin America and the Caribbean. Trained as a labor economist, Truman’s work has focused primarily on the impact of social insurance -including pensions, unemployment insurance, and health coverage- on household labor supply decisions, saving behavior and risk management. Truman holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

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2020 - 202532000 - 20192
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Now showing1 - 5 of 5
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    (In)Formalizing Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean: Taxes, Benefits, and Labor Market Incentives
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-02) Fietz, Katharina; Joubert, Clement; Ñopo, Hugo; Ocampo, Alberto J.; Packard, Truman; Posadas, Josefina; Chamussy, Lourdes Rodriguez
    Designing and administering effective national social protection systems have long been a challenge for policy makers worldwide. For decades, the principal objection to social protection policies was that they encouraged sloth. Today, voters and governments are less worried that taxes and social protections are unintentionally creating poverty traps than that they are encouraging workers to be static rather than dynamic or leading employers to be averse to using new technologies that can scale economic activity. "(In)Formalizing Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean: Taxes, Benefits, and Labor Market Incentives" deepens the understanding of the incentives to informalize or formalize work in the labor markets in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on the interplay among personal income taxation, social protection, and labor market policies and how they all combine to shape firms’ and workers’ incentives to (in)formalize jobs. This book introduces a new conceptual framework to guide the analysis and inference—one that centers on individual workers’ decisions and in light of the value they ascribe to present and future benefits; their bargaining power with employers, which is determined by labor market competitiveness; and the government’s ability to detect and sanction evasion. This report provides a detailed mapping of tax, benefits, and contracting rules, which supports empirical analysis to identify and quantify incentives for (in)formal employment and to simulate how reforms to current policies and programs would affect these incentives. This analysis forms the basis for policy reform recommendations that would substantially improve incentives, so that more workers and firms in the LAC region choose to formalize employment and participate in personal income tax and social protection systems.
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    How Regulations Impact the Labor Market: A Review of the Literatures on Product and Labor Market Regulations
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-06) Alzate, David; Carranza, Eliana; Duran-Franch, Joana; Packard, Truman; Proffen, Celina
    This paper provides an extensive review of the literatures on product and labor market regulations and their effects on labor market outcomes. It uncovers the interdependence of these two types of regulations, an area that has received limited attention in research. The paper highlights why understanding the intricate relationship between product and labor market regulations is crucial for effective policy making and advancement of labor market conditions. The findings strongly discourage adopting uniform policies and advocate for tailored approaches to labor market promotion.
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    Regulating Markets So More People Find Better Jobs
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-18) Carranza, Eliana; Saliola, Federica; Packard, Truman
    This paper proposes a dynamic regulatory framework that adapts to the evolving structural transformation of economies across sectoral, spatial, occupational, and organizational dimensions. It highlights how well-designed and appropriately enforced labor and product market regulations (LMRs and PMRs) can enhance labor market outcomes, support job creation, and improve employment quality. A dynamic approach involves tailoring regulations to economic shifts, market failures, and administrative capacities, fostering structural transformation while addressing emerging challenges associated with service-led growth and digitalization. The paper advocates for a much greater investment in labor market observatories (LMOs) as tools to guide data-driven, agile regulatory responses akin to monetary policy adjustments. By integrating LMR and PMR, it outlines a path toward sustainable economic transformation, while discussing political economy challenges inherent in implementing dynamic regulatory frameworks.
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    In From the Shadow : Integrating Europe's Informal Labor
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012) Packard, Truman; Koettl, Johannes; Montenegro, Claudio E.
    This book is about Magda and Jacek and millions of others like them, who earn a living working full- or part-time in Europe's untaxed markets for goods, services, and labor. Magda was certified as a hairdresser years ago, and she's very proud of the salon apprenticeship she did shortly after. She learned a lot and made good friends but was never fully comfortable working for somebody else. Jacek's clients pay him in cash, and he pays his men in cash as well. He sometimes needs to show a license to get the trade price on parts and materials. But he can keep it up-to-date by declaring only part of what he actually earns to the tax office. This book ventures a general conclusion about what policy makers can do to bring more economic activity in from the shadow: Although it may be necessary to improve the structural incentives created by taxation, social protection policies, and labor market regulation, doing so is not sufficient for substantive improvement to be achieved. To back up this general conclusion, the book presents a large body of evidence indicating that much more than the fairly mechanical incentive structures of taxation, social policy, and labor market regulation is at work in shaping the circumstances that lead people into the shadowy unregulated and untaxed markets for goods, services, and labor.
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    Keeping the Promise of Social Security in Latin America
    (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005) Gill, Indermit S.; Packard, Truman; Yermo, Juan; Pugatch, Todd
    Nations around the world (both large and small, rich and poor) are engaged in debate over how to reform their social security systems and care for the aged. For many countries this debate requires speculation on hypothetical scenarios, but in Latin America a rich body of experience on social security reform has been accumulating for more than a decade (for Chile, more than two decades). This report, entitled, Keeping the Promise of Social Security in Latin America, takes stock of those reforms, evaluates their successes and failures, and considers the lessons that can be drawn for the future of pension policy in the region. The authors draw on a series of background papers and surveys commissioned specifically for this inquiry, as well as existing research conducted by themselves and other pension experts. In the debate on pension reform there is no orthodoxy, as reflected in major differences of opinion among leading experts. Despite more than a decade of experience with pension reform in Latin America, although undoubtedly a major step forward, reforms are still works in progress. This report furthers enrich the policy dialogue that is of crucial importance to the future of the region.