The Office of the Chief Economist brings together knowledge and expertise across major sectors of development. We seek to produce and feature papers that provides sustainable and innovative solutions for the development challenges, with a focus on South Asian countries and beyond.
2025
Election-induced fiscal policy cycles in democratic and non-democratic emerging market and developing economies
Franziska Ohnsorge, Jakob de Haan & Shu Yu
Bridging the Gap: Revenue Mobilization in South Asia
Hagen Kruse, Franziska Ohnsorge, Gabriel Tourek & Zoe Leiyu Xie
2024
Geoeconomic Fragmentation and “Connector” Countries
Franziska Ohnsorge & Shekhar Aiyar
Election-Induced Fiscal Policy Cycles in Emerging Market and Developing Economies
Franziska Ohnsorge, Jakob de Haan & Shu Yu
What Explains Global Inflation
Franziska Ohnsorge, Jongrim Ha, M. Ayhan Kose & Hakan Yilmazkuday
From financial development to informality: a causal link
Franziska Ohnsorge, Salvatore Capasso & Shu Yu
Boosted income, busted environment: a tradeoff in the wider economic impacts of transport corridor investments?
Siddharth Sharma, Martin Melecky & Hari Subhash
Structural Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Open Economy Perspective
Hagen Kruse, Gaaitzen de Vries, Emmanuel Buadi Mensah, Yabo Vidogbena & Kei-Mu Yi
The Occupation Content of Trade
Hagen Kruse, Marcel P Timmer, Gaaitzen J de Vries & Xianjia Ye
Corruption as a Local Advantage: Evidence from the Indigenization of Nigerian Oil
Jonah Rexer
Optimal Unemployment Insurance and Costly Self-Control
Zoe Xie & Pei Cheng Yu
Education, Social Norms, and the Marriage Penalty: Evidence from South Asia
Maurizio Bussolo, Jonah Rexer & Margaret Triyana
Household and Firm Exposure to Heat and Floods in South Asia
Jonah Rexer, Patrick Behrer, Siddharth Sharma & Margaret Triyana
Jobless Development
Franziska Ohnsorge, Richard Rogerson & Zoe Leiyu Xie
Social Norms and Gender Disparities with a Focus on Female Labor Force Participation in South Asia
Maurizio Bussolo, Jessy Amarachi Ezebuihe, Ana Maria Muñoz Boudet, Stavros Poupakis, Tasmia Rahman & Nayantara Sarma
Evaluating the Impacts of Access to a Digital Jobs Platform and Skills Training on Female Domestic Workers
Maurizio Bussolo, S Anukriti, Jean Lee, Siddharth Sharma & Anaise Williams
Climate Change Adaptation: What Does the Evidence Say?
Jonah Rexer & Siddharth Sharma
Optimal Unemployment Insurance and Costly Self-Control
Zoe Xie & Pei Cheng Yu
Climate Shocks and the Poor: A Review of the Literature
Margaret Triyana, Weicheng Jiang, Yurui Hu & Md Shah Naoaj
2023
One-stop source: A global database of inflation
Franziska Ohnsorge, Jongrim Ha & M. Ayhan Kose
A Mountain of Debt: Navigating the Legacy of the Pandemic
Franziska Ohnsorge, M. Ayhan Kose & Naotaka Sugawara
A Manufacturing (Re)Naissance? Industrialization in the Developing World
Hagen Kruse, Emmanuel Mensah, Kunal Sen & Gaaitzen de Vries
Falling Long-Term Growth Prospects
Franziska Ohnsorge & M. Ayhan Kose
Long-term evolution of inequality of opportunity: Educated parents still matter
Maurizio Bussolo, Daniele Checchi & Vito Peragine
The evolution of job tenure in transition economies
Maurizio Bussolo, Michael M. Lokshin, Nicolás Oviedo & Iván Torre
Political connections and firms: network dimensions
Maurizio Bussolo, Simon Commander & Stavros Poupakis
Explaining the Evolution of Job Tenure in Europe, 1995–2020
Maurizio Bussolo, Damien Capelle, Michael M. Lokshin, Iván Torre & Hernan Winkler
Slowing Growth: More Than a Rough Patch
Franziska Ohnsorge & M. Ayhan Kose
Potential Growth: A Global Database
Franziska Ohnsorge, Sinem Kilic Celik, M. Ayhan Kose & Franz Ruch
Potential Growth Prospects: Risks, Rewards, and Policies
Franziska Ohnsorge, Sinem Kilic Celik & M. Ayhan Kose
Understanding the Global Drivers of Inflation: How Important are Oil Prices?
Franziska Ohnsorge, Jongrim Ha, M. Ayhan Kose & Hakan Yilmazkuday
Election-induced fiscal policy cycles in emerging market and developing economies
Franziska Ohnsorge, Jakob De Haan & Shu Yu
Forecasting Industrial Commodity Prices : Literature Review and a Model Suite
Franziska Ohnsorge, Francisco Arroyo-Marioli, Jeetendra Khadan & Takefumi Yamazaki
The Distributional Impact of Inflation in South Asia: An Empirical Approach
Vanessa Olakemi Dovonou & Zoe Leiyu Xie
Are Carbon Taxes Good for South Asia?
Valerie Mercer-Blackman, Lazar Milivojevic & Victor Mylonas
Natural Disasters and Fiscal Drought
Lazar Milivojevic
The links between COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and non-pharmaceutical interventions
Maurizio Bussolo, Nayantara Sarma & Iván Torre
How Selling Online Is Affecting Informal Firms in South Asia
Maurizio Bussolo, Akshay Dixit, Anne Golla, Ananya Kotia, Jean N. Lee, Prema Narasimhan & Siddharth Sharma
2022
The Short and the Long of it: Stock-Flow Matching in the US Housing Market
Zoe Xie, Eric Smith & Lei Fang
A Quantitative Analysis of CARES Act Unemployment Insurance
Zoe Xie, Lei Fang & Jun Nie
Social Norms and Gender Equality
Maurizio Bussolo, Jessy Amarachi Ezebuihe, Ana Maria Munoz Boudet, Stavros Poupakis, Tasmia Rahman & Nayantara Sarma
A Dynamic Model of Fiscal Decentralization and Public Debt Accumulation
Zoe Xie, Si Guo & Yun Pei
Dynamics and synchronization of global equilibrium interest rates
Robert C. M. Beyer & Lazar Milivojevic
Trade Agreements in South Asia: Towards a Successful Story in the Developing World
Sebastian Franco Bedoya
2021
Politically connected firms and privileged access to credit: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe
Maurizio Bussolo, Francesca de Nicola, Ugo Panizza & Richard Varghese
I Perceive Therefore I Demand: The Formation of Inequality Perceptions and Demand for Redistribution
Maurizio Bussolo, Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Anna Giolbas & Iván Torre
Understanding FDI Spillovers in the Presence of GVCs
Valerie Mercer-Blackman, Wei Xiang & Fahad Khan
The Impact of United States Tax Policies on Sectoral Foreign Direct Investment to Asia
Valerie Mercer-Blackman & Sheila Camingue
The Causal Effects of Long-Term PM2.5 Exposure on COVID-19 in India
Takahiro Yamada, Hiroyuki Yamada & Muthukumara Mani
Poverty and Migration in the Digital Age: Experimental Evidence on Mobile Banking in Bangladesh
Jean N. Lee, Jonathan Morduch, Saravana Ravindran, Abu Shonchoy & Hassan Zaman
It takes two (to make things right): Women's Empowerment and Couple Concordance in South Asia
Maurizio Bussolo, Nayantara Sarma & Anaise Williams
Narrowing the gender gap in mobile banking
Jean N.Lee, Jonathan Morduch, Saravana Ravindran & Abu S.Shonchoy
Workers at Risk: Panel Data Evidence on the COVID-19 Labor Market Crisis in India
Maurizio Bussolo, Ananya Kotia & Siddharth Sharma
2020
Feeling Poor, Feeling Rich, Or Feeling Middle-Class: An Empirical Investigation
Maurizio Bussolo, Mathilde Lebrand & Ivan Torre
Global Inequality in a more educated world
Maurizio Bussolo, Amer Ahmed, Marcio Cruz, Delfin S. Go & Israel Osorio-Rodarte
The Drivers of Firms' Compliance to Environmental Regulations: The Case of India
Sebastian Franco-Bedoya & Muthukumara Mani
Regional Integration in South Asia: Implications for Green Growth, Female Labor Force Participation, and the Gender Wage Gap
Muthukumara Mani, Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan & Deepika Wadhwa
Valuing Unpaid Care Work in Bhutan
Valerie Mercer-Blackman, Jooyeoun Suh, Changa Dorji & Aimee Hampel-Milagrosa
Migration, externalities, and the diffusion of COVID-19 in South Asia
Jean N.Lee, Mahreen Mahmud, Jonathan Morduch, Saravana Ravindran & Abu S.Shonchoy
Fiscal policy and economic activity in South Asia
Robert C. M. Beyer & Lazar Milivojevic
Lights Out ? COVID-19 Containment Policies and Economic Activity
Robert C. M. Beyer, Tarun Jain & Sonalika Sinha
Examining the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in India through Daily Electricity Consumption and Nighttime Light Intensity
Robert C. M. Beyer, Sebastian Franco-Bedoya & Virgilio Galdo
2019
Vertical and Horizontal Redistribution: Evidence from Europe
Maurizio Bussolo, Carla Krolage, Mattia Makovec, Andreas Peichl, Marc Stöckli, Iván Torre & Christian Wittneben
Employment in South Asia: A New Dataset
Robert C. M. Beyer, Milagros Chocce & Martin Rama
Fiscal Policy and Economic Activity in South Asia
Robert C. M. Beyer & Lazar Milivojevic
Inflation Dynamics and Global Value Chains
Sebastian Franco Bedoya & François de Soyres
2018
Toward a New Social Contract: Taking on Distributional Tensions in Europe and Central Asia
Maurizio Bussolo, María E. Dávalos, Vito Peragine & Ramya Sundaram
Paris Climate Agreement and the Global Economy: Winners and Losers
Muthukumara Mani, Deepika Wadhwa, Zekarias Hussein & Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan
Does Job Polarization Explain the Rise in Earnings Inequality? Evidence from Europe
Maurizio Bussolo, Ivan Torre & Hernan Winkler
Wider Economic Benefits of Investments in Transport Corridors and the Role of Complementary Policies
Siddharth Sharma, Martin Melecky & Hari Subhash
Measuring districts' monthly economic activity from outer space
Robert C. M. Beyer, Esha Chhabra, Virgilio Galdo & Martin Rama