Maria Marta Ferreyra is a senior economist at the Global Engagement and Knowledge office of the Education Global Practice of the World Bank. She is an Economics of Education expert who leads and participates in studies, conducts research, engages with policymakers, and supports World Bank operational teams.

Her current focus is on tertiary education. She has studied tertiary education in the developing world, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia, and South Asia. For Latin America and the Caribbean, she has led comprehensive studies on higher education and on short-cycle higher education programs (lasting two or three years), co-led a study on cities and productivity, and contributed to a study on knowledge and capabilities for innovation. She is a coauthor of the World Development Report 2024, where she studied the role of education in social mobility, innovation, and growth. She is currently leading a global study on tertiary education’s contribution to research, innovation, and growth. She has conducted research on higher education supply and expansion, access and equity, outcomes and quality, and productivity implications across space. In addition, she has written on K-12 education issues in the US, including private school vouchers, charter schools, public school finance, and accountability and standards.

Her research has been published in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Public Economics, and the American Economic Journal-Economic Policy. Prior to joining the World Bank, she served as a faculty member at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, where she taught Economics, Statistics, and Economics of Education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two daughters.