Informality in prior literature. Notes: Data for Argentina come from Cruces et al. (2018) Table 1. They measure informality in urban areas across all sectors except the public sector, agriculture and mining. An Argentine worker is coded as informal if the worker’s employer does not make statutory payroll tax and social insurance payments, and the analysis omits self-employed individuals. Data for Brazil come from Bosch et al. (2012) Fig. 1a). They measure informality in six major metropolitan areas across all sectors. A Brazilian worker is coded as informal if they do not have a signed work card providing them access to the benefits and labor protections afforded by the legal employment system or if they are self-employed. Data for Colombia come from Goldberg and Pavcnik (2003) Table 3b. They measure informality in urban areas across all sectors. A Colombian worker is coded as informal if their employer does not pay social security taxes, including self-employed workers. Data for Peru come from Cisneros-Acevedo (2022) Fig. 3, which measures informality in a nationally representative sample of manufacturing workers. A Peruvian worker is coded as informal if they are employed by an unregistered employer, they do not pay taxes on their income (including among self-employed), or they are an unpaid family worker. Note that Cisneros-Acevedo (2022) considers a liberalization episode in 2009 rather than the 1991 liberalization listed in Table 1