Policy work

Growth and mobility

Co-author of Greater Heights: Growing to High Income in Europe and Central Asia, World Bank, Washington, DC, March 2025.

Twenty-seven countries have reached high-income status since 1990. Ten of these are in the Europe and Central Asia region and have joined the European Union. Another 20 in the region have become more prosperous since the 1990s. However, their transition to high-income status has been delayed. The concern has emerged that many countries in the region may be caught in the middle-income trap.  This report relies on the 3i strategy described in World Development Report 2024—investment, infusion, and innovation—to propose policy options to assist middle-income countries in Europe and Central Asia in the effort to reach high-income status. Drawing on comprehensive empirical analysis, the report offers actionable recommendations that will enable policy makers to advance stronger economic growth across the region. Such a transition will require continued and sustained foundational reform to maximize the drivers of economic growth while pivoting to new transformative reforms to promote the development of more complex economic structures and institutions. These involve the need to discipline incumbents, boost the role of the private sector, strengthen the competitive environment, and reward merit. The emphasis on a strategy driven by innovation is also critically important for those countries that have already attained high-income status.

Education

Co-author of chapter 2 in Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Fall 2024: Better Education for Stronger Growth , World Bank, Washington, DC, October 2024.

While economic stability has returned to the countries of Europe and Central Asia, growth remains sluggish. Overhauling education systems across the region, particularly higher education, would help to unlock the human talent these economies need to reinvigorate growth and boost convergence with high-income countries. The main challenge that most of the countries in the region face is not enrollment but the quality of education, which has fallen in recent years, particularly for disadvantaged students and students in vocational education. The quality of secondary education has declined but it is higher education quality that is underperforming even more. A mismatch between the supply and demand of skills leads to wasted human potential and contributes to the region’s brain drain. To reverse this decline in educational quality, governments need to focus on improving teacher training; providing accurate academic information to teachers, principals, and families; updating curricula; investing in educational infrastructure. Reforms are also needed to improve management and accountability, consolidate university systems, integrate them with research centers, and provide re-skilling opportunities for adult workers. 

Future of Work

Co-author of The Future of Work: Implications for Equity and Growth in Europe, World Bank, Washington, DC, November 2023.

This report aims to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between technology, economic growth, and equity by analyzing the impact of technological progress on firm-level productivity, market concentration, and labor market outcomes of workers with different education levels. The analysis focuses on the effects that technology can have in European Union (EU) member states, addressing two main distributional challenges: (i) an increase in market concentration, with a few large and innovative firms hoarding the benefits of technological progress, and (ii) technological progress exacerbating income differences between highly educated and other workers. These two challenges, and the public policies aiming to address them, will shape the future relationship between technological progress, economic growth, and income distribution in Europe.

Cost-of-Living

Co-author of chapter 2 in Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Spring 2023: Weak Growth, High Inflation, and a Cost-of-Living Crisis, World Bank, Washington, DC, April 2023.

Economic growth slowed sharply during 2022  in Europe and Central Asia, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a surge in inflation, and the sharp tightening of monetary policy and financing conditions hit private consumption, investment, and trade. The marked increase in food and energy prices boosted inflation to a pace not seen in 20 years. The burden of inflation was spread unevenly across households. The poorest households faced inflation that was more than 2 percentage points higher than the inflation faced by the richest households, with this difference exceeding 5 percentage points in some countries. Poverty and inequality rates derived from household-specific inflation rates differ from those based on the standard consumer price index (CPI) approach. These differences have important policy implications, because many programs use CPI–based inflation adjustments, which do not accurately capture changes in the cost of living of targeted populations. 

Social Protection

Co-author of chapter 2 in Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Fall 2022: Social Protection for Recovery, World Bank, Washington, DC, October 2022.

Globalization, demographic trends, the green transition, and technological innovations are transforming labor markets in Europe and Central Asia, altering their institutional and contractual arrangements, and creating disparities and vulnerabilities in the labor force. Systemic risks—economic, health, or climate-related—are also playing an increased role in driving poverty and vulnerability. Social protection systems in Europe and Central Asia will need to be reformed to address these challenges and provide adequate protection to workers and families. Countries in the region responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing social protection packages with a substantial contribution of job protection policies. Analysis of the impact of these policies suggests that while job protection policies may have preserved employment in the short run, this may have come at the expense of efficiency and growth. In the long run, income protection policies may be better at addressing the needs of vulnerable groups as labor markets continue evolving. A policy package that combines a guaranteed minimum income with labor market policies that facilitate job transitions can best help countries address long-term challenges.

Economic Shocks and Human Trafficking Risks

Co-author in World Bank-IOM joint report Economic Shocks and Human Trafficking Risks: Evidence from IOM's Victims of Human Trafficking Database, World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022.

This report focuses on risk factors that are expected to increase the vulnerability to human trafficking from and within origin countries such as economic shocks, measured by large, discrete changes to export commodity prices and to GDP. It also explores the role that institutions play through enforcing the rule of law, providing access to justice, and implementing anti-trafficking policies, as protective factors that could weaken the link between economic shocks and an increase in human trafficking. The analysis verifies that economic shocks are significant risk factors that increase vulnerability to human trafficking. In origin countries, economic vulnerabilities, especially those caused by global commodity price shocks, are strongly positively correlated with observed cases of trafficking. For instance, the economic shock produced by a typical decrease in export commodity prices is associated with an increase in the number of detected victims of trafficking of around 12 percent. The analysis suggests that good governance institutions and particularly a commitment to the rule of law and access to justice as well as stricter anti-trafficking policies and social assistance can have a limiting effect on the number of observed cases of trafficking following economic shocks. 

Data, Digitalization and Governance

Co-author of chapter 2 in Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Spring 2021: Data, Digitalization and Governance, World Bank, Washington, DC, March 2021.

Governments play a critical role in the economies of Europe and Central Asia, where government expenditures are close to 40 percent of gross domestic product and the public sector accounts for nearly 26 percent of total employment, which is almost twice the global average. The public sector often attracts some of the best educated workers in the region. And support for a larger public sector is increasing due to aging populations and their growing health care and long-term care needs, rising inequality and greater support for redistribution, and increasing expenditures as governments address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis. The significant role that government plays underscores the importance of the quality of governance in determining productivity and growth and effectively responding to the region’s economic and social challenges. Digital technology and the data revolution offer the potential to increase efficiency, transparency, responsiveness, and citizen trust, directly impacting the quality of government. Across the world, the quality of government is increasingly informed by the extent to which governments harness digital tools and GovTech to optimize management, service delivery, and overall state capacity. Technology and data are also key for fostering collaboration between governments and civil society to improve public sector efficiency and service delivery. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the costs associated with delaying digitalization and GovTech implementation and the opportunities that lie in public sector modernization.

Human Capital

Co-author of chapter 2 in Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Fall 2020: COVID-19 and Human Capital, World Bank, Washington, DC, October 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit human capital directly in Europe and Central Asia, adversely affecting both education and health. School closures may lead to learning losses equivalent to a third to a full year of schooling, and they are likely to exacerbate inequalities, by disproportionately affecting students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The disease has already killed thousands of people, and some patients who survive will suffer long-term damage to their health. Recovery from the pandemic will thus require strong investment in education and health. This update examines human capital outcomes in the region and the ways in which the pandemic is likely to affect them. A focus on the quality of tertiary education and health risk factors of obesity, smoking, and heavy drinking highlights the challenges that are particularly important for the region. Post-COVID 19 policy initiatives to improve education and health will need to recognize the challenges posed by increased reliance on remote learning and the importance of being prepared for future pandemics, given the vulnerability of the region’s aging societies and the large number of people with underlying health risks. 

Income inequality and taxation

Co-author of chapters 1-4 in M. Bussolo, M. E. Dávalos, V. Peragine and R. Sundaram (eds.) Toward a New Social Contract: Taking On Distributional Tensions in Europe and Central Asia, Europe and Central Asia Studies, World Bank, Washington, DC, September 2018.

The growing economic fissures in the societies of Europe and Central Asia between generations, between insiders and outsiders in the labor market, between rural and urban communities, and between the super-rich and everyone else, are threatening the sustainability of the social contract. The institutions that helped achieving a remarkable degree of equity and prosperity over the course of several decades now face considerable difficulties in coping with the challenges presented by these emerging forms of inequality. Public surveys reveal rising concerns over inequality of opportunity, while electoral results show a marked shift to populist parties that offer radical solutions to voters dissatisfied with the status quo. There is no single solution to relieve these tensions, and attempts to address them will vary considerably across the region. However, this publication proposes three broad policy principles: (1) promote labor market flexibility while maintaining protection for all types of labor contracts; (2) seek universality in the provision of social assistance, social insurance, and basic quality services; and (3) expand the tax base by complementing progressive labor-income taxation with taxation of capital. These principles could guide the rethinking of the social contract and fulfil European citizens’ aspirations for growth and equity

Economics of Crime

Estimation of the Direct Costs of Crime and Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean, joint with Laura Jaitman, chapters 1-3 in L. Jaitman (ed) The Costs of Crime and Violence: New Evidence and Insights in Latin America and the Caribbean, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, February 2017.

This publication is the first to provide a comprehensive, systematic, and rigorous analysis of the costs of crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. The main challenges in the region are addressed: the social cost of homicides, private and public spending on security, the penitentiary crisis, violence against women, organized crime, and cybercrime. The volume estimates that the direct cost of crime for 17 LAC countries in 2010-2014 is, on average, 3.5 percent of the region's GDP, twice as much as in the developed world.

Electoral analysis

Espiritu adolescente: el voto joven en Argentina (in Spanish)  [Teen spirit: the youth vote in Argentina], CIPPEC working paper n. 150, Centro para la Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento, Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 2016

This working paper provides descriptive statistics on vote turnout among 16 and 17 years old in Argentina during the first elections for which they were eligible to vote in October 2013. It correlates turnout with households' socioeconomic characteristics and finds that electoral relevance -defined as a combination of number of voters and their turnout- increased for rich areas -which have high turnout rates for the young- and poor areas -which have a higher number of young voters registered-, whilst it decreased for middle income areas -where not enough young voters are registered and where their turnout is not very high.