25 to respond to the needs of potential migrants would not be realistic. But the same types of reforms that are needed to improve the effectiveness of the programs locally can allow them to expand and serve regional or foreign local markets. The results from recent impact evaluations and meta-analysis suggest five types of reforms: 1) adopting modern identification and registration systems; 2) adopting statistical profiling systems to help assess the main constraints facing migrants to access different labor markets; 3) outsourcing the provision of services to, local and _international_ , private/public providers (for profit and non-profit) on the basis of contracts that pay by results; 4) rethinking financing mechanisms to be able to expand coverage, relying more on contributions from job seekers and employers (possibly including small dismissal taxes<sup>49</sup> ); and 5) implementing rigorous evaluation and monitoring systems. Reformed programs can then serve both migrants and those who stay behind. The latter group is critical. Essentially, services should be available to all workers/job seekers, some of whom will be able to find jobs outside the local market and might then be eligible for additional support such as mobility grants.

_Remittances and investment subsidies for job creation and labor productivity growth_ . There are already important initiatives underway to improve the management of remittances and, in particular, to reduce the cost of remitting (see Box 1). In the presence of jobs externalities, however, just reducing the cost of remitting and increasing flows might not be enough. There is an important policy agenda around how to mobilize remittances to promote investments, job creation, and/or improvements in labor productivity and the quality of existing jobs. Some of the interventions involve subsidizing private investments, in various forms, to align private and social rates of return.<sup>50</sup> This can be done through programs that support value chain development, SMEs, and entrepreneurship. The evidence about potential impacts is still scant but the operations of some of the existing initiatives seem promising.<sup>51</sup> What is missing is to identify the type of financial instruments that can be used to mobilize remittances to fund the private part of the investments. In some cases, those receiving remittances might invest directly. But in many cases, those receiving remittances and those investing are different individuals. Interventions that could be explored and evaluated involve having local financial institutions issue bonds to capture remittances and then fund part of the programs that support investments and job creation (the other part would be funded by public resources).

_Social insurance programs that cover all jobs and facilitate labor mobility_ . Two fundamental problems with existing, Bismarckian, social insurance programs (pensions, health insurance, and unemployment benefits) are that they rely on formal wage employment, and that contributions made by plan members are delinked from the expected cost of the benefit provided. Domestically, the reliance on labor contracts implies that migrant workers transiting between jobs and regions are unlikely to be covered, thus reducing incentives to move or exposing workers and families to undue risks. Many migrants, in fact, are likely to be selfemployed workers who are not covered by the social security. Internationally, the lack of a link between contribution and benefits makes it difficult to transfer acquired rights between social security systems and, in addition, can generate implicit tax/subsidies when workers move from one country to another. For instance, low-income migrants enrolling in a defined-benefit pension

> 49 These taxes could replace severance pay.  When workers are dismissed, employers would make payments to a fund that contributes to finance active labor market programs to re-connect workers to jobs (see Ribe et al., 2010; and Robalino, 2018).

> 50 See Robalino and Walker (2017) and Robalino, Romero and Walker (2019).

51 For a review of the programs, see Buba and Aterido (2019), Datta et al., (2018), and Packard et al., (2019).