WASHINGTON, July 1, 2019— Martín Rama, a Uruguayan national, is the new World Bank Chief Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region.
Rama’s top priorities will be to provide intellectual leadership on development issues facing LAC, to promote high-quality analytical work about the region and to advise the regional management team on development issues.
“I feel honored by this opportunity to lead a technically strong team connecting research and analysis with programs to reduce poverty and spread inclusive growth across Latin America and the Caribbean,” Rama said. “I look forward to bringing the lessons I learned in Asia and other areas to my work in the region where I grew up and call home.”
From 2013 to 2018, Rama was the Chief Economist for the South Asia region of the World Bank, based in Delhi, India.
Rama was also the Director of the Bank’s 2013 World Development Report on Jobs. Prior to his position in India, he spent eight years as the Lead Economist for Vietnam, based in Hanoi. That followed ten years with the research department of the World Bank.
Rama starts his new role on July 1, replacing fellow Uruguayan economist Carlos Végh. Végh served as Chief Economist for LAC since February 2017 and is returning to academia as the Fred H. Sanderson Professor of International Economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Rama holds a degree in economics from the Universidad de la República (Uruguay) and a PhD in macroeconomics from the Université de Paris in France.
He is also affiliated with several think tanks in developing countries. In parallel with his World Bank duties, from 1990 to 2005 he was visiting professor at the graduate program in development economics at the Université de Paris.
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