World Development Report 2017 Team Members

Luis F. Lopez-Calva

Co-Director
Luis-Felipe is the co-Director of the World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law and a Lead Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank. Prior to his co-Director position, he was Lead Economist and Regional Poverty Advisor in the Europe and Central Asia region, and until 2013 was Lead Economist in the Poverty, Equity and Gender Unit in the Latin America and Caribbean PREM Directorate at the World Bank. López-Calva served as Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) from 2007 to 2010. He has been an Ivy League Exchange Scholar in the Economics Department at Harvard University, as well as Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Development at Stanford University and the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER). In Mexico, he was a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI), Associate Professor and Chair of the Masters in Public Economics at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico City Campus, and he also taught at Universidad de las Américas Puebla and El Colegio de México. He is a Fellow of the Human Development and Capabilities Association, member of the International Advisory Panel of the Young Lives Project (Oxford University) and Associate Editor of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. He holds a Master’s and Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University and a Master’s degree in Economics from Boston University. His publications and research interests focus on labor markets, poverty and inequality, institutions and development economics.
Yongmei Zhou

Co-Director
Yongmei Zhou is a co-Director of the World Development Report on Governance and the Law. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley before joining the World Bank as a Young Professional in 1999. She has extensive operational experience with governance reform and institutional development in Africa, South Asia and the fragile and conflict-affected states. Her research has focused on the issues of corruption, legislature, decentralization, and service delivery. She also played leadership role as the Manager of the Fragility, Conflict and Violence Group, which advocated for a wide range of corporate reforms and provided technical assistance to country teams in fragile and conflict-affected states.
Edouard Al-Dahdah

Senior Public Sector Specialist
Edouard Al-Dahdah is a Senior Public Sector Specialist who has worked at the World Bank since 2001, first in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Unit, then at the World Bank Institute, where he worked on governance and anticorruption diagnostics and empirics, and led the Political Economy team. From 2012 to 2015, he was the Senior Governance Specialist for Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, based in Cairo. He is the lead author of “Rules on Paper, Rules in Practice: Enforcing Laws in the Middle East and North Africa” (2016), and “Better Governance in the Middle East and North Africa” (2003), among other publications. He did his graduate work at the University of Chicago and Georgetown University, and his undergraduate work at the American University of Beirut.
Kimberly Bolch

Research Analyst
Kimberly Bolch is a Research Analyst with the World Development Report 2017. Previously she was a Junior Professional Associate in the Poverty Global Practice supporting research, dissemination and outreach for analytical work on poverty and inequality dynamics, gender equity, and distributional impacts of public policy in the Europe and Central Asia region. Prior to joining the World Bank, Kimberly worked as a Fulbright teaching assistant at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. She holds a B.A. in International Studies from Washington University in St. Louis.
David Bulman

Economist
David Bulman is an Economist at the World Bank and a lecturer on the Chinese economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). David’s research looks at decentralization, governance, and economic development, with a particular emphasis on China. His first book, Incentivized Development in China: Leaders, Governance, and Growth in China’s Counties, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016. David received his B.A. from Columbia University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins SAIS. Prior to the World Bank, he was a China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center.
Stephen Commins

Consultant
Stephen Commins is the Associate Director for Global Public Affairs and Lecturer in Urban Planning at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA. Dr. Commins worked on World Development Report 2015, Mind, Society and Behavior and recently completed study of World Bank CDD programs in South Asia, and a project on 'cities, violence and order' with IDS/Sussex. He worked as the Senior Human Development Specialist in the Human Development Network and was a member of the World Development Report 2004 team. His recent work has focused on fragile states, disasters, and basic service delivery.
Lidia Ceriani

Consultant
Lidia Ceriani has been a consultant at the World Bank since 2012. Before joining the World Development Report 2017 team, she worked at the Poverty Global Practice and in the Europe and Central Asia region on poverty measurement methodology, on the welfare impact of fiscal and social policies and on distributional analysis. Before joining the World Bank, Lidia was a lecturer at Bocconi University (2006-2012), and assistant editor for the Review of Income and Wealth (2008-2014). She has been a member of the Italian EUROMOD team since 2009. Her research interests are in the fields of Income Distribution, Poverty Measurement and the Welfare Effects of Public Policies.
Deborah Isser

Lead Governance Advisor
Deborah Isser is Lead Governance Advisor in Africa and Global Lead for Justice in the Governance Practice at the World Bank. She is an author of the World Development Report 2017, Governance and the Law. She joined the World Bank in 2011, and has served as Program Manager of the Justice for the Poor program and governance focal point for fragile and conflict-affected states. Previously, Deborah worked at the United States Institute of Peace, directing projects on legal pluralism and on land and conflict. She served as senior policy adviser at the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and special adviser on peacekeeping at the United States Mission to the United Nations. She is the editor of Customary Justice and the Rule of Law in War-Torn Societies (USIP Press 2011), and author of several reports, articles and book chapters on law, justice and development. Deborah served as adjunct faculty at Georgetown and George Washington Law Schools. She received degrees from Harvard Law School, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Columbia University.
Märt Kivine

Senior Program Officer
Märt Kivine, senior program officer, is handling partner relations, outreach activities and production of the World Development Report. Previously worked with the World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends, and at the World Bank Board, as an Advisor and Senior Advisor to the Executive Director (2010-2014). Before joining the Bank, made a career in national civil service in Estonia, serving as a Counsellor at the Ministry of Finance (2006–2010), advisor to the President of Estonia (2007-2010) and political Advisor of the Foreign Ministry (1999–2001). He also worked as Director and Deputy Director of Governments European Integration Office (2001–2003), Director of the Performance Audit Unit in the State Audit Institution (2004–2005).
Marco Larizza

Senior Public Sector Specialist
Marco Larizza is Senior Public Sector Specialist in the Governance Global Practice at the World Bank. He is a core author of the World Development Report 2017. Until 2015, Marco has led the design and supervision of analytical studies and lending operations to support governance reforms in West and Central Africa, with a special focus on post-conflict and fragile settings. His most recent work focuses on citizen engagement, transparency and accountability initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, Marco served as Visiting Fellow at the Center for Latin American Studies, Georgetown University and the Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, University of Essex (UK). He has published journal articles, book chapters and policy reports on comparative democratization, human rights, the political economy of decentralization and public service reforms. Marco received his PhD and MA in Political Science from the University of Essex (UK), and his MA in Development Economics from the University of Bologna (Italy).
Bradley Larson

Research Analyst
Bradley Larson will be contributing to the chapters on conflict and institutional change and will help to improve empirical measurement of governance. Last year, he worked on the governance and public services chapter of WDR 2016. Previously, he worked for the World Bank’s Public Sector Governance Unit, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Annamaria Milazzo
Annamaria Milazzo holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Bocconi University. Prior to joining the WDR 2017 team, she was a post-doctoral researcher in the Development Research Group of the World Bank. Her research explores how social norms and parental gender preferences shape individual behavior with impacts on human development outcomes for women and children in developing countries. Before starting her Ph.D., she worked for the World Bank in the Social Protection & Labor unit from 2005 to 2009.
Ezequiel Molina

Economist
Ezequiel Molina is an economist in the Education Global Practice of the World Bank. He works on issues of institutional reform and service delivery with research spanning the areas of governance, education, gender and poverty and inequality. Recent publications include a systematic review on the effectiveness of social accountability interventions and a paper assessing the quality of service delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa. He also has co-authored the book Economic Polarization, Institutions and Conflict in Latin America. Ezequiel holds a PhD in Political Economy from Princeton University, and a B.A. and M.A. in Economics from La Plata National University (Argentina).
Brónagh Murphy

Senior Program Assistant
Brónagh Murphy has been the Senior Program Assistant for the office of World Development Report since 2009. She coordinates and provides technical and logistical support in the planning, production, and launch of the Report. Brónagh has also worked in the World Bank Institute, the Quality Assurance Group, and the Bank's Africa Region.
Abla Safir

Economist
Abla Safir is an Economist at the World Bank. She has conducted analytical and operational work in the topics of labor markets, migration, skills, social protection, and service delivery in Europe and Central Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa. Abla has been with the Bank since 2010, working as a Consultant until 2012, when she joined the Young Professionals Program. Prior to that, Abla was an Economist at the OECD, where she led a work program on migration in Central America and West Africa. Abla holds a PhD in Economics from the Paris School of Economics and M.A. degrees from HEC Business School and ENSAE Graduate School of Economics, Statistics and Finance in Paris.
Siddharth Sharma

Economist
Siddharth Sharma is an economist at the World Bank, specializing in issues of firm-level productivity, the impact of business regulations on firms, and the functioning of labor markets in developing countries. His research has been published in peer-reviewed economics journal, and he has also contributed chapters to a number of World Bank policy reports, including regional flagship reports on topics such as youth employment in Africa, the economic effects of an aging population, and managing financial tradeoffs for inclusive growth in Europe and Central Asia. Siddharth has an MA in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. He has been with the World Bank since 2006.
Jason Victor

Program Assistant
Jason Victor is a Program Assistant with the office of World Development Report at the World Bank. He provides technical and logistical support in the planning, production, and launch of the Report. Jason has been with the Bank for 16 years and has worked on 12 previous WDRs. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering.