Workshop on Informality in the Latin America and the Caribbean Region

William F. Maloney is Chief Economist for the Latin America and the Caribbean region at the World Bank. Previously he was Chief Economist for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions, and Trade and Competitiveness; he was also Global Lead on Innovation and Productivity. Prior to the Bank, he was an assistant professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1990-1997) and then Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America until 2009. From 2009 to 2014, he was Lead Economist in the Development Economics Research Group. From 2011 to 2014 he was visiting professor at the University of the Andes and worked closely with the Colombian government on innovation and firm upgrading issues. Mr. Maloney received his PhD in economics from the University of California Berkeley (1990), his BA from Harvard University (1981), and he studied at the University of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia (1982–83).

Santiago Levy is a nonresident senior fellow with the Global Economy and Development Program at Brookings. He was previously president of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association. From 2008 to 2018 he was the vice president for sectors and knowledge at the Inter-American Development Bank. From 1994 to 2000, he served as the deputy minister at the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico. At the Ministry of Finance, he was the main architect of Progresa-Oportunidades, Mexico’s incentive-based health, nutrition, and education program for the poor; managed the transition from generalized to targeted subsidies; promoted legal reforms to decentralize resources to states and municipalities; participated in the change of the pay-as-you-go to the capitalized pension system; promoted a regional plan to develop Mexico’s southern region; and drafted and negotiated six budgets with the Federal Congress. At the Social Security Institute, he promoted legal changes to reform pensions and extend coverage to rural workers; was responsible for the provision of health services to 45 million people, introducing preventive health programs and electronic medical records; managed pensions for 2.5 million people and day care centers for 230,000 children; managed $8 billion in reserves; and collected annually $20 billion in social security contributions.

Norman Loayza is Director of the Global Indicators Group at the World Bank. Previously, he was a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group and managed the Asia hub of the Research Group, based in Malaysia. He was director of the World Development Report 2014, Risk and Opportunity: Managing Risk for Development. His research has dealt with various areas of economic and social development, including macroeconomic management, economic growth, microeconomic flexibility, private and public saving, financial depth and stability, natural disasters, and crime and violence. His advisory experience at the World Bank has also ranged across different topics in various regions and countries. A few examples include business environment and economic performance in Latin America; informal and formal labor markets in the Middle East and Northern Africa; public infrastructure gaps in Pakistan and Egypt; savings for macroeconomic stability and growth in Sri Lanka, Georgia, and Egypt; and pro-poor growth in Indonesia and Peru. On external service from the World Bank, he was a Senior Economist at the Central Bank of Chile (1999-2000), where he advised on financial and monetary policy. Norman has edited 10 books and published dozens of papers in professional journals and edited volumes. A Peruvian national, he holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University (1994).

Marcela Meléndez is a Senior Advisor at the Latin American and Caribbean Chief Economist office at the World Bank. Before joining the World Bank, she served as Chief Economist for the LAC region at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where she led knowledge production to support policy design and decisionmaking in the region. Before that, she was Managing Partner at ECONESTUDIO, a Colombian boutique economic consulting and research firm recognized for its contributions to the public policy debate. She was also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Economics of Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). Ms. Meléndez is an applied microeconomist with research interests in development economics. Her work has focused on the design and evaluation of public policy, antitrust, and regulation of infrastructure services. She co-directed the "Mission of Equity and Social Mobility" convened by the Colombian government (2013) and has been a member of Experts Commissions for the review of public expenditure and investment (2017) and the internationalization of the Colombian economy (2021). She is the lead author of the UNDP LAC Regional Human Development Report 2021, "Trapped: High Inequality and Low Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean." Her recent research examines the relationship between the business size distribution, inequality, and economic growth and the roles played by regulatory frameworks in LAC. At the World Bank, she conducts and supports the production of knowledge on the region's most pressing problems. Ms. Meléndez has a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and a B.A. in Economics from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia).

Fernando Saltiel is an Assistant Professor of Economics at McGill University. He is a labor economist, focusing on topics related to the economics of human capital and the economics of education in developed and developing countries. His research has appeared in journals such as the American Economic Journal, Journal of Applied Econometrics, European Economic Review and Economics of Education Review. Before joining McGill, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at Duke University. He previously worked in the Economic Studies division at the Brookings Institution. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics (University of Maryland), a Master’s in Public Policy and a BA in Economics (University of Maryland).

Joana Silva is a Senior Economist in the Human Development Chief Economist Office of the World Bank and an associate professor at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics. She has expertise in applied economics, labor economics, international economics, development economics, and public economics. Silva has led several World Bank lending operations and has extensive experience advising governments—in particular, on the design, implementation, and evaluation of economic reforms, social programs, and monitoring and evaluation systems. Her research has been published in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review and Journal of International Economics. She has coauthored five books, including three World Bank regional flagship reports: Employment in Crisis: The Path to Better Jobs in a Post– COVID-19 Latin America, Wage Inequality in Latin America: Understanding the Past to Prepare for the Future, and Inclusion and Resilience: The Way Forward for Social Safety Nets in the Middle East and North Africa. She holds a PhD in economics from the University of Nottingham.

Andrea Otero is a Researcher at the Central Bank of Colombia since 2018. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Masters and Undergraduate degrees from Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Her work focuses on labor and firm informality in developing countries and other development issues. Andrea is currently working on the evaluation of policies and interventions for reducing informality.

Camila Cisneros Acevedo is an Assistant Professor (non-tenure) in the Department of Economics in the University of Tübingen where I am a member of the Research School of International Taxation (RSIT). She obtained her PhD in Economics at the University of Nottingham in 2020. Previously, She obtained a master’s degree in Economics and Econometrics (MSc) with distinction from the same institution. She hold an undergraduate degree in Economics from the Catholic University of Peru, and also hold a Master degree in Economics from Torcuato Di Tella University in Argentina. Her professional experience includes working at the InterAmerican Development Bank and the Central Bank of Peru in their research departments. I also hold 3 years of experience working as a statistics consultant in Nat Consultores in Argentina and Uruguay. Her work is at the intersection of International Trade, Labour Economics and Development Economics. I am especially interested in the effect that trade, taxation, and migration may have on imperfect labor markets in Latin American countries.

Joana Naritomi is an Associate Professor at the London School of Economics, International Development Department, and the Academic Director of the LSE School of Public Policy. She is a Research Affiliate in BREAD, the CEPR Public Economics and Development Economics programs, STICERD Public Economics, Institute for Fiscal Studies, International Growth Centre, and a JPAL-LAC Invited Researcher. She has a PhD in Political Economy and Government (Economics) from Harvard University, and her main research interests are Public Economics, Development Economics and Political Economy. She has papers published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of Economic History. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, and Folha de São Paulo.

Eric Verhoogen is Professor of Economics and of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. His primary research area is industrial development – empirical microeconomic work on firms in developing countries. His work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, and other journals. He is currently serving as a Research Program Director of the International Growth Centre and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Bureau for Research in the Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley

Brenda Samaniego de la Parra is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before joining the Economics Department at UC Santa Cruz, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, an Associate at Cornerstone Research, and served as Special Projects Deputy Director for the National Banking and Securities Commission in Mexico. She is an external consultant for the World Bank and the International Labour Organization. Her research analyzes different work arrangements between workers and firms with a special focus on informality, how they respond to shocks, and their implications for wages and employment dynamics. Her work has provided novel estimates on the share of informal employment within formal firms, and the impact of policies aimed at increasing formal work. She received a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.

Gabriel Ulyssea is an associate professor in the economics department at UCL and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He is also a Research Fellow at IZA and a Research Affiliate at CEPR and BREAD. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and his main research interests include economic development and labor economics. His current work focuses on firms and informality, and the relationship between migration and economic development

Luca Flabbi is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He previously worked in the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank and in the Department of Economics at Georgetown University, which he joined right after receiving a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University. He is a labor economist and works on issues related to informality, gender differentials, inequality, and household economics. His scientific contributions have appeared in leading international journals such as the International Economic Review, the Journal of Econometrics and the Journal of Labor Economics. His policy contributions have appeared in flagships publications for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. In addition to UNC, he is affiliated with IZA (Bonn). He is co-editor of Labour Economics.

Alan Finkelstein Shapiro is an associate professor of economics at Tufts University. His research lies at the intersection of macroeconomics, labor economics, and international macroeconomics and focuses on the study of labor market dynamics, financial frictions, and business cycles in emerging economies and advanced economies; the importance of heterogeneity for the behavior of labor markets and short-run economic activity; the relevance of the firm and employment structure in shaping short- and long-run macroeconomic performance; and the effectiveness of macro policies and structural reforms in mitigating the impact of adverse shocks to the economy.

Lucas received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. His research focuses on labor economics, public finance, and economics of education, particularly in developing countries. He is starting a post-doctoral position at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and then joining the Sao Paulo School of Economics - FGV as an Assistant Professor.

Marcela Eslava is Professor and Dean of Economics at Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá; a Fellow of the Econometric Society; and Vice-President 2022-2023 (President 2024-2025) of The Latin American and the Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA). Professor Eslava holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park. Her current research interests revolve around the lack of inclusive growth in Latin America, with a focus on firm dynamics and productivity, as well as informality. Professor Eslava’s research has been published in leading academic journals. She has been involved in multiple initiatives, research projects and missions led by multilateral organizations and the Colombian government, to contribute to the understanding of the origins of the deficit of inclusive growth in the region and to devise solutions to it.

Rodrigo R. Soares is Lemann Professor of Brazilian Public Policy and International and Public Affairs. Professor Soares’ research centers on development economics, ranging from labor, human capital, and demographic economics, to crime. His work has appeared in various scientific journals, including American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Development Economics, among various others. Before joining Columbia, Soares taught at the Sao Paulo School of Economics-FGV, PUC-Rio, the University of Maryland, and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Luis Franjo is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Alicante. Prior to joining the University of Alicante, he was a postdoc fellow between 2013 and 2017 at the Chair of International Finance at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). His research focuses on Macroeconomic aspects of Growth, Development, and Housing. He holds a Bachelor's and a Ph.D. in Economics from University Carlos III de Madrid.

David McKenzie is a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group, Finance and Private Sector Development Unit. He received his B.Com.(Hons)/B.A. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. Prior to joining the World Bank, he spent four years as an assistant professor of Economics at Stanford University. His main research is on migration, enterprise development, and methodology for use with developing country data. He has published more than 150 articles in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Political Economy, Science, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of the European Economic Association, Economic Journal, American Economic Journal: Applied Micro, Journal of Econometrics, and all leading development journals. He is currently on the editorial boards of the Journal of Development Economics, the World Bank Economic Review, and Migration Studies. He is also a co-founder and regular contributor to the Development Impact blog

Ms. Ana María Ibáñez Londoño, a citizen of Colombia, was appointed Vice President for Sectors and Knowledge (VPS) as of June 1, 2023. Previous to this appointment, Ms. Ibáñez Londoño was Economics Principal Advisor in VPS since 2019 when she joined the IDB. In this role, she coordinated and supervised the VPS knowledge program in close collaboration with the operational departments, focusing on aligning the multi-annual agenda with the development priorities of the Region. Previous to joining the Bank, Ms. Ibáñez was a Professor in the School of Economics at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá since 2003, where she conducted cutting-edge research on migration, rural development, and the consequences of conflict. Additionally, from 2012‑2016, she was Dean of the School of Economics at said University and from 2008‑2012 was the Director of the Research Center of the School of Economics (CEDE). She has been a visiting professor and senior fellow at several universities during her career, including Princeton and Yale, and is an accomplished writer of publications and books with particular emphasis on migration, forced displacement and armed conflict. Ms. Ibáñez holds a Ph.D. degree and a Master’s degree in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.