World Development Report 2024 Team Members

Somik Lall is Senior Adviser to the Chief Economist of the World Bank Group.

Lall has recently directed the World Bank's 2024 World Development Report on the “Middle Income Trap” that examines how middle-income countries can break into the ranks of the wealthiest economies.

Previously, he headed the climate economics and policy team in the World Bank’s Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions vice presidency, where he developed and supervised policy research programs on resilience and economic development, the macro-criticality of climate change, and innovations for the low-carbon transition.

His other roles include being the Global Lead for territorial development and Lead Economist for the World Bank’s Cities Practice where he developed a novel data-driven approach to help city mayors rapidly respond to protect their citizens from the ravages of COVID 19. Listen to his Monocle podcast.

Lall is widely published in academic and policy journals. His 2021 book, Place, Productivity, and Prosperity, provides a new analytic framework to discipline policies targeting specific places within countries. His 2017 book, “Africa's Cities: Opening Doors to the World,” provides new evidence on institutional and regulatory constraints that hobble urbanization in Africa.

Dr. Lall also teaches at Johns Hopkins University and has been a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi.

Ufuk Akcigit served as the Academic Lead for the World Development Report 2024. He is also the Arnold C. Harberger Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on macroeconomics, economic growth, firm dynamics, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is also widely published in the top economic journals. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Joyce Antone Ibrahim is the Task Team Leader of the World Development Report 2024. She also served as the Task Team Leader for World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies. Prior to that, she spent nearly six years with the Subnational Doing Business Unit, where she led studies to assess the business environment in China, Malaysia, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. She also worked with the (former) Doing Business project on various indicators, including leading the dealing with construction permits indicator for three years, as well as on financial inclusion and transparency issues within the World Bank. Joyce holds a Master’s of Arts in International Relations and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Bachelor’s of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.        

Roberto N. Fattal Jaef is a Senior Economist in the Macroeconomics and Growth team of the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice-Presidency. His research interests cover various areas of macroeconomics, with a special emphasis on economic growth. Current and recent research topics include: 1) understanding the role of market distortions for firm level behavior, entrepreneurship, and long run macroeconomic outcomes; 2) investigating the micro and macro patterns of transition growth paths, 3) studying the role of credit for the business cycle. Prior to joining the Bank, he worked at the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department (2011-2013). He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Maria Marta Ferreyra is a senior economist at the Global Engagement and Knowledge office of the Education Global Practice of the World Bank. Her research specializes in the Economics of Education. She has written about the effects of large-scale policies in primary and secondary education in the United States, including school choice programs such as private school vouchers and charter schools, and public schools’ finance and accountability. At the World Bank she has studied higher education in the developing world, with a special focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. For this region, she has led comprehensive studies on higher education and on short-cycle higher education programs (lasting two or three years) and has co-led a study on cities and productivity. She has conducted research on higher education supply, quality, finance, and impacts on labor markets and the spatial distribution of human capital. 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. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Kenan is an Economist at the Development Economics Vice-Presidency’s Development Policy Unit. His research interests cover various cross-cutting areas of macroeconomic policy, including economic growth, social protection, and sovereign debt. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as the Head of Department at the Ministry of Treasury and Finance in Türkiye. Kenan holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Hacettepe University, Türkiye, and a Master’s of International Development Policy from Duke University.

Tatjana Kleineberg is an Economist in the Macroeconomics and Growth team of the World Bank’s Research Department. Her research is at the intersection of macroeconomics, economic development, labor, and spatial economics. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Sciences Po Paris and a PhD in Economics from Yale University.

Mathilde Lebrand is a Senior Economist in the Prospects Group, a unit of the World Bank's Development Economics Vice-Presidency. Previously she has worked for the Infrastructure and the Europe and Central Asia Chief Economist's offices. Her research focuses on economic geography, transport, and trade; and her work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Development Economics and World Bank Economic Review. Prior to joining the World Bank, she taught at the University of Montreal and worked at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the European University Institute.

Martha Martinez Licetti is the Practice Manager of the Global Markets, Competition, and Technology Unit of the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank Group. In this role, she focuses on delivering global solutions tailored to country circumstances combining advisory, analytical, and lending support in the areas of markets, competition and state-owned enterprises, innovation & technology, and sustainable sectors.

With over 20 years of experience in competition policy, economic regulation, and reforms to enable private sector-led growth, she has successfully promoted economy-wide and sectoral reforms in more than 60 client countries around the world. She previously served as Lead Economist at the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice and Economic Advisor on trade and competitiveness. Since 2020, she leads the World Bank programmatic engagement on the Businesses of the State to understand the role of the state footprint in markets aiming to redefine the instruments and tools to engage in reforms. She has published journal articles, books, and World Bank reports and flagships on issues related to competition policy, the role of the state in markets, trade, investment and market regulation, telecommunications, and digital platforms. Licetti also served as Global Lead for Markets and Competition, where she created the competition policy practice from scratch and led the WBG’s work in the areas of product market regulation, antitrust enforcement, competitive neutrality, and state aid policies.

Dino Leonardo Merotto, now Advisor to the Director General of the Independent Evaluation Group, was Lead Economist in the cross-cutting Jobs Group of the World Bank. During his time there, he authored the World Bank’s jobs and growth framework under a Flagship Report, and pioneered evidence-based country Jobs Diagnostics and led the development of the Bank’s global jobs databases. A macroeconomist with 30 years of experience advising Governments on macro fiscal policy, structural reforms, and public investments for growth across all regions, he has led the World Bank’s Debt and Inclusive Growth Groups and was Advisor to the UK Executive Director in the IMF and World Bank Executive Boards.

Forhad Shilpi is a Senior Economist in the Development Research Group (Sustainable Development and Infrastructure) of the Development Economics Vice-Presidnecy. Her current research focuses on social mobility in developing countries, microeconomics of climate resilience and urban and regional economics. Her research has been published in leading development and economics journals such as American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Human Resources, and Journal of Economic Geography. She is a founding member of the Research Network in Intergenerational Mobility (RNIM) virtual seminar series. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Sandi Soe Lwin provides technical and administrative assistance throughout the entire preparation of the World Development Report 2024. As part of her work, she manages consultant and firm contracts and provides administrative support for the Growth Academy 2024. Prior to joining the World Development Report team, she worked with the Strategy, Risk, and Country Community (OPSRR) in the Operations Policy and Country Services Vice-Presidency. She also worked with the World Bank’s Myanmar Country Office. Sandi holds a master’s degree in business administration from Assumption University (ABAC), and a Diploma in International Relations and Economic Policy of Southeast Asia from the International Center of Excellence (ICOE), offered at Yangon University in association with Johns Hopkins University.

Katherine Stapleton is an economist in the Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice. Her research focuses on the topics of international trade, climate policy, innovation and labor economics. At the World Bank she has been leading analytical work and policy dialogue on the topics of climate change, low-carbon innovation, trade and economic growth in the East Asia and the Pacific region, where she currently serves as Country Economist for China and Cambodia. Prior to this she worked on research relating to trade and innovation in the Development Economics Research Group’s Trade and International Integration Unit. Before joining the World Bank, Katherine was an Overseas Development Institute Fellow. Katherine holds a PhD in Economics and an MSc. in Economics for Development from Oxford University.

Maria Vagliasindi is currently Lead Economist in the Infrastructure Vice-Presidency. She has been leading analytical work and policy dialogue on energy and infrastructure reforms in several developing countries worldwide. She has written widely on the economics of competition, regulation, and public-private partnerships (PPPs), and also on governance of state-owned enterprises. Before joining the World Bank, she worked in the Chief Economist’s Office of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. She has also been a Lecturer in Economics, teaching industrial and public economics at the University of Edinburgh. Maria holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick. 

Ekaterina ‘Katia’ Vostroknutova leads the Growth Team in the Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice at the World Bank. She holds a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute in Florence, a Master’s degree from the European University at St. Petersburg, and a degree in Applied Mathematics from the Moscow State University. Katia joined the Bank as a Young Professional as a core team member of the World Development Report 2005. Since then, she worked extensively in the three regions of the world: East Asia and Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia. Her research, analytical, and operational work at the Bank has been mainly on micro-foundations of economic growth and economic policy in middle-income countries.