The Human Development Network, Education, of the World Bank, has organized an international seminar on the empirical evidence of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Education. The main aim of this seminar is to examine the impact of PPPs on educational outcomes around the world, with an emphasis on less developed and developing countries. The organizers have given priority to papers with solid, credible identification strategies. The program consists of six papers and three research proposals that will be discussed. In addition, a policy forum with providers has been organized, along with an investment forum that brings together major financiers of education programs. The program is aimed at researchers and project task teams.
The Organizing Committee consisted of Harry Anthony Patrinos (chair), World Bank; Paul Peterson, Harvard University; Elizabeth King, World Bank; and Felipe Barrera-Osorio, World Bank.
Though governments remain the main financiers of education (at least basic education) around the world, in many countries production of education is operated by private boards. It is often argued that private schools, or Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) that increasing choice in terms of the types of providers, would increase competition in the school system, thus leading to efficiency gains and improved quality. Despite the clear commitment of governments and international agencies to the education sector, efficient and equitable access to education still proves elusive to many. Often for girls, indigenous peoples and other poor and marginalized groups, opportunities of access to education are more limited. Access issues are being addressed with great commitment with international initiatives, whereby resources are being channeled into the low income countries to help them achieve universal basic education. However, even where children do have access to education facilities, the quality of education is often very poor. This had been increasingly apparent in the international learning test scores where most of the students from developing countries fail to excel. Private education – or PPPs – encompasses a wide range of providers, including for-profit schools (that operate as enterprises), religious schools, non-profit schools run by NGOs, public funded schools operated by private boards, and community owned schools. By extending support to these schools, and providing financing, either by school grants or vouchers governments can provide better choice to parents and an opportunity to fully participate in their children’s schooling. The evidence base on the efficiency of such approaches is still limited, and considerable controversy exists. Nevertheless, there is surging demand for private education in response to limited public access and poor quality. This brings the need to ensure equity through targeted intervention, based on rigorous impact evaluation.
The Human Development Network, Education, of the World Bank, has organized an international seminar on the empirical evidence of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Education. The main aim of this seminar is to examine the impact of PPPs on educational outcomes around the world, with an emphasis on less developed and developing countries. The organizers have given priority to papers with solid, credible identification strategies. The program consists of six papers and three research proposals that will be discussed. In addition, a policy forum with providers has been organized, along with an investment forum that brings together major financiers of education programs. The program is aimed at researchers and project task teams.
The Organizing Committee consisted of Harry Anthony Patrinos (chair), World Bank; Paul Peterson, Harvard University; Elizabeth King, World Bank; and Felipe Barrera-Osorio, World Bank.
Tanya D. SCOBIE, Sector Operations Officer, International Finance Corporation
3:30PM
CLOSING SESSION
Speakers Bios
Mario Cristian AEDO Inostroza, Senior Education Economist Cristian AEDO is a Senior Education Economist in The World Bank’s Human Development Department of the Latin America and the Caribbean Region. His fields of interest include the economics of education, health economics and impact evaluation. He has written several book chapters, journal articles and reports on education and health policy.
Mr. Aedo earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Minnesota. Before joining the World Bank, he worked as a Professor of Economics at the ILADES-Georgetown Master of Arts Program at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago-Chile and he was the Chairman of the Research and Development Department of INACAP.
Felipe BARRERA, Senior Education Economist Felipe Barrera specializes in the areas of impact evaluation, education and poverty, with special emphasis on basic education, conditional cash transfers, public-private partnerships, and user fees, among others. He worked previously as Deputy-Director of the Colombian think tank Fedesarrollo. Mr. Barrera received a doctorate degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Eric BETTINGER, Case Western Reserve University (TBC) Professor Eric Bettinger (Case Western Reserve University) is an active researcher in the economics of higher education. His research is very quantitative in nature and utilizes statistical techniques that allow him to identify causal relationships between components in higher education and student outcomes. In recent years, he has published several articles focusing on the role of remediation in higher education. This research relies on large, state-wide data from the Ohio public universities and colleges. Using a variety of statistical techniques, he and Professor Bridget Terry Long (Harvard) find that remediation positively impact students' educational outcomes.
Bettinger has also published articles about the effects of need-based financial aid on student retention. Using statistical tools and exploiting "natural experiments," Bettinger's research suggests that need-based awards significantly improve students’ likelihoods of persisting in higher education after the first year. In other work which is joint with Professor Long, Bettinger studies the role of adjunct professors in affecting student outcomes in college. The findings from this research suggest that adjuncts increase the likelihood of subsequent enrollments without any significant difference in student outcomes in courses within the same subject; however, students who are exposed almost exclusively to adjunct professors are at risk to drop-out of college early.
Bettinger also has experience conducting randomized interventions to examine the factors that impact student success in primary and secondary school. He helped to administer and conduct research on educational voucher programs in Colombia and the United States. Currently, he is involved in the evaluation of a randomized experiment which streamlines the financial aid application process for low-income families.
Erik BLOOM, Senior Economist Erik BLOOM is a Senior Economist at the World Bank in Education in the Latin America Region. He is working on basic and higher education issues in Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Prior to coming to the World Bank, he was a Country Economist and a Human Development Economist in the Mekong Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and an economist in the Economics and Research Department of the ADB. At the ADB, Bloom worked extensively in projects and research focusing on the health status of the poor in Viet Nam and Cambodia. In Viet Nam, he supervised the ADB’s Rural Health Project and the Health Care in the Central Highlands Project, which both focus on improving the health status of poor households in the least development regions of Viet Nam. His research has focused on health financing for the poor, the human development of ethnic minorities, and inequality in human development. He was a leading economic researcher on the economic impact of avian flu.
Prior to coming to the ADB and the World Bank, Bloom was an international consultant, a Professor of Economics in Mexico (at CIDE) and a Poverty Reduction Specialist under contract to the Government of Colombia. In Latin American, Bloom worked extensively in research and policy advice in human development and poverty. His areas of research have included the demand for social services, inequality of human development, and relationship between poverty and human development. He also has worked in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the area of education finance and reform. Bloom has a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and B.A. in International Relations and Spanish from U.C. Davis.
Dante CONTRERAS, Universidad de Chile Dante Contreras, PhD in Economics at University of California , Los Angeles. His research areas include poverty, inequality and education. Currently he is working in the relationship among those topics, with special emphasis to LDCs. He is an associate researcher of the UNDP office at Santiago de Chile and associate professor at the Department of Economics ate the Universidad de Chile. Contreras has co-authored a book, book chapters and journal articles, and has written numerous reports on public policies, program evaluation and education policy.
Amit DAR, Lead Education Economist Amit Dar is a Lead Education Economist 9in the South Asia Region Human Development Unit. He has worked extensively on education, vocational education and training and labor market issues in various countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Nigeria, Tanzania, Thailand and Zambia. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University.
Gregory ELACQUA, Princeton University Gregory's research is focused on privatization and education policy. He has conducted research on schools in Chile and has also been active in the politics of education reform. Before starting his doctorate at Princeton University, Gregory was a senior policy adviser to the Minister of Education in Chile. He is also an associate researcher and assistant professor (on leave) at the School of Government at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile. Gregory has co-authored a book, book chapters and journal articles, and has written numerous reports on education policy. He also actively participates in the Chilean education public debate by regularly writing editorial opinion pieces.
Guy ELLENA, Director, Health and Education, International Finance Corporation Mr. Guy Ellena is the Director of the Health and Education Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). He is in charge of a growing portfolio of health and education investments of over $356 million in more than 30 emerging market countries. Mr. Ellena joined the World Bank in 1986 and occupied successive operational positions as a Health Economist in several regions where he carried out policy work for the World Bank. He joined IFC's Latin America and Caribbean Department as its first Senior Health Specialist in 1998, as part of the Department’s new Health Care Unit. Between April 2000 and November 2001, Mr. Ellena was the Technical Manager for the Global Practice Group for Social Sectors (now the Health and Education Department). Before joining the World Bank Group, Mr. Ellena was a researcher and health economics/policy consultant for the French Government's development agencies. He holds a Masters Degree in Economics as well as a PhD in Health Economics from the University of Aix-Marseille.
Tatiana FILGUEIRAS, Manager, Development and Evaluation, Instituto Ayrton Senna Tatiana Filgueiras studied Urbanism and Architecture and has a post-graduate degree in Integrated Communications from Berkeley University, studied Non-Profit Management at California State University, and Communication Process Management at São Paulo University. She has been working in the Instituto Ayrton Senna since 1999, where she coordinates the Evaluation and Development Department.
Robin HORN, Sector Manager, Education Robin HORN is Education Sector Manager for the Human Development Network of the World Bank. From 2002 until 2006 he was Lead Education Specialist in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region where he had lead responsibility for the World Bank’s education program of analytic work and lending for Turkey. Between 1992 and 2003 he was responsible for the Bank’s education program for Brazil, as well for other countries in the Latin American and Caribbean Region. During that period, he lived in Brazil. Robin Horn’s work with the Bank has involved collaboration with national governments, state governments, civil society organizations, and academics in the US and across the world. His education sector research, programs, and projects have focused on education quality, learning outcomes, management, and finance for basic, secondary, and tertiary education systems.
Before joining the World Bank, Dr. Horn worked as an education economist in the United States Agency for International Development and as a researcher with the private sector providing analysis and support to the U.S. Federal Government.
Dr. Horn has a PhD. in Economics of Education from Columbia University in New York City.
Charles GOLDMAN, Associate Director, Education, RAND Charles A. Goldman (PhD, Economic Analysis and Policy, Stanford University) is a senior economist with 15 years’ experience analyzing elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education in a number of countries. As Associate Director of RAND Education, he is responsible for the oversight of RAND Education’s international project portfolio. In particular, he oversees RAND Education’s efforts to reform the education system of the State of Qatar and expand high-quality options for schooling at all levels, working with a large team of colleagues from RAND and other organizations. He recently co-authored a significant chapter on education in Palestine for the new RAND book, Building a Successful Palestinian State. He is also the co-author of several recent books analyzing higher education, including In Pursuit of Prestige, The PhD Factory, and Paying for University Research Facilities and Administration. Prior to joining RAND in 1993, Dr. Goldman earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a PhD in Economic Analysis and Policy from Stanford University, and held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Stanford School of Education.
Emmanuel JIMENEZ, Sector Director, East Asia Region Emmanuel JIMENEZ, from the Philippines, has held a variety of positions as an economist and manager in the policy, research and operational units of the World Bank. He is currently Staff Director of the World Development Report 2007 team. Since early 2002, he has also been Sector Director, Human Development, in the World Bank’s East Asia Region, where he is responsible for managing operational staff working on education and health issues. Prior to this position, he held a similar position in the Bank’s South Asia Region. Before that he served for many years in the Bank’s Development Economics Staff, where he managed staff and also engaged in research on a variety of topics, including education and health finance, the private provision of social services, the economics of transfer programs and urban development. He has served both formally and informally on several teams preparing World Development Reports. Before joining the World Bank, Mr. Jimenez was on the faculty of the economics department at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada.
Ruth KAGIA, Director, Education Ruth KAGIA, a Kenyan national, is currently the Education Director at the World Bank. Since joining the Bank in 1990, she has led the design and implementation of education programs in the Africa and East Asia regions both as a technical specialist and as a manager. As Education Director, she has overseen the establishment of the scaling up of the MDG /EFA agenda including the establishment of the EFA-Fast Track Initiative and led a major expansion of the lending and analytical education program. Prior to joining the Bank, Ms. Kagia worked for 17 years in Kenya and Eastern Africa where she held several senior positions in teaching, research and management.
Changhui KANG, National University of Singapore Changhui KANG is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, the National University of Singapore. His areas of expertise are labor economics and economics of education. His works have appeared in international refereed journals such as Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Population Economics, Economics Letters, Applied Economics and the Developing Economies.
Zahra KASSAM, Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) Zahra Kassamhas been working in the field of education and youth development for over ten years. She has worked in various capacities for the Aga Khan Foundation. As Programme Officer for Education, she helped to start the foundation’s work in school improvement, literacy and early childhood development in Mozambique. Most recently, she co-authored with AKF colleagues, a paper for the upcoming 2008 Global Monitoring Report on the role of non-state providers and public-private-community partnerships in reaching Education for All. Ms. Kassam formerly served as Program Associate in The Ford Foundation’s Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom Unit, working on policy and broad-based constituency building for education reform. She has also managed large-scale community and youth programs for nonprofit organizations. Ms. Kassam is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University (Religion and Political Economics), and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (M.Ed., Administration, Planning and Social Policy).
Elizabeth KING, Research Manager Elizabeth KING is an economist and the manager of the research team in the World Bank that focuses on human development issues and public services (Development Research Group, Public Services and Human Development Team). She has undertaken research on topics such as household investments in human capital; the linkages between human capital, poverty and economic development; gender issues in development; and education finance and the impact of decentralization reforms in developing countries. Since joining the World Bank, she has worked on countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, and the Philippines, among others, contributing to public expenditure reviews, country economic reports, policy analyses of the human development sectors, and impact evaluations of policies and programs. Ms. King has a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University and a BA from the University of the Philippines.
Henk KOK, Senior Education Advisor, CINOP Henk Kok holds a Master Degree in Business Management, Social Sciences and Educational Management from The Netherlands, and obtained a Sales and Marketing degree in New Zealand. His professional experience includes line –project and human resources management, as well as consultancy and coaching in a wide variety of sectors in both profit and non-profit organizations. He currently works as an HRD specialist for CINOP, where he is specialized in adult education and the variety of ways people can be stimulated and supported to develop their full potential. Henk focuses on the way organizational systems can support people in their development rather than form a straitjacket that prevents initiative and natural learning.
Henk has worked outside of The Netherlands for a period of 6 years, in sales and marketing, marketing research, in the hospitality industry, and healthcare.
Maureen LEWIS, Acting Chief Economist Maureen LEWIS is Chief Economist for Human Development at the World Bank. Much of her research, publications and policy work examine governance and corruption concerns in the social sectors, particularly health. She was formerly a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development for two years and prior to that managed a unit in the World Bank dedicated to economic policy and human development research and programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Before joining the World Bank, she established and directed the International Health and Demographic Policy Unit at the Urban Institute. She has published dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals on a range of topics in the social sectors. She earned her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University.
Frank J. LYSY, Chief Economist, MIGA Frank J. LYSY is the Chief Economist and Director of the Economics and Policy Group of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). MIGA is the arm of the World Bank Group that provides political risk insurance for private investments in member countries. His group is responsible for assessing the risks faced by the projects being supported (including assessment of the political risks that MIGA is insuring against), and for ensuring the projects being supported are developmentally sound and consistent with good economic policy. He had previously been Senior Advisor in the Office of the Chief Economist of the International Finance Corporation, and before that had held a series of positions in the World Bank proper. He started his career teaching at The Johns Hopkins University, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.
Sebastian MARTINEZ, Young Professional Sebastian Martinez is a Young Professional in the Africa Region Impact Evaluation Cluster at the World Bank. His research focuses on the identification of causal effects of social programs on household welfare in the areas of poverty, health, education and housing interventions. He has written papers on the role of parents for investments in children’s human capital, the effect of conditional cash transfers and pensions on household productive investments, and the effects of informal settlement upgrading on health. Since joining the World Bank he has worked on a range of impact evaluations, including early childhood education, youth employment, cash transfers, community driven development, health insurance and informal settlement upgrading, amongst others. Mr. Martinez received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2005.
Karthik MURALIDHARAN, Harvard University Karthik MURALIDHARAN will complete his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in June 2007, and join the faculty in the economics department at UC - San Diego starting July 2008. He will be spending the year of 2007 – 08 as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Karthik is a co-author of a widely-cited cross-country study on teacher and medical worker absence in public schools and clinics in developing countries. He has also studied the impact of performance-pay for teachers, and the impact of contract teachers on student learning outcomes in India via a large-scale randomized evaluation. He is currently embarking on a 5-year research initiative studying the impact of school choice for poor children in India.
Juan Carlos NAVARRO, Chief, Education Unit, Inter-American Development Bank Juan Carlos NAVARRO is the Chief of the Education Unit at the Sustainable Development Department of the Inter-American Development Bank. He holds a Master in Public Policy from Georgetown University and completed doctoral studies in Political Science at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. He has been Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and for several years was the Chair of the Center for Public Policy at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Administration (IESA), the leading business and public policy school in Venezuela. Throughout his career, Mr. Navarro has advised several Latin American governments and international organizations on issues of education, science and technology and social policy. Since joining the IDB in 1997, Mr. Navarro has provided direct support to lending and technical assistance activities in education in most countries served by the Bank, and he has also contributed to shaping its education and science and technology strategies. His publications include books and articles on issues of education financing, decentralization and management, higher education, education technology, non-governmental provision of social services and political economy of reform and the social sectors.
Daniel E. ORTEGA, Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion (IESA), Caracas, Venezuela Daniel E. ORTEGA has an Undergraduate degree in economics from Universidad Central de Venezuela, MA and PhD in Economics from University of Maryland. Research interests in economics of education, political economy of social programs, social policy and program evaluation. He is associate professor at IESA (Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración) in Caracas and Research Economist at CAF (Andean Development Corporation).
Harry Anthony PATRINOS, Lead Education Economist Harry Anthony PATRINOS is Lead Education Economistat the World Bank. He specializes in all areas of education, especially school-based management, demand-side financing and public-private partnerships. He managed education lending operations and analytical work programs in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, as well as a regional research project on the socioeconomic status of Latin America’s Indigenous Peoples, published as Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Human Development in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). He is one of the main authors of the report, Lifelong Learning in the Global Knowledge Economy (World Bank, 2003). Mr. Patrinos has many publications in the academic and policy literature, with more than 40 journal articles. He is co-author of the books: Policy Analysis of Child Labor: A Comparative Study (St. Martin’s, 1999), Decentralization of Education: Demand-Side Financing (World Bank, 1997), and Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis with George Psacharopoulos (World Bank/Ashgate, 1994). He has also worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. He previously worked as an economist at the Economic Council of Canada. Mr. Patrinos received a doctorate from the University of Sussex.
Paul E. PETERSON, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government & Director of Program on Education Policy and Governance, Harvard University Paul E. PETERSON (Ph. D., Chicago, 1967) is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and Editor-In-Chief of Education Next, a journal of opinion and research on education policy. He is a former director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and of the Governmental Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He is the author or editor of over one hundred articles and twenty-two books, including No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability, The Future of School Choice, Our Schools and our Future...Are We Still At Risk? The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools; Charters, Vouchers, and Public Education; Earning and Learning: How Schools Matter; Learning From School Choice; The Politics of School Reform: 1870-1940; School Politics Chicago Style; City Limits; The New Urban Reality; The Urban Underclass; The Price of Federalism; Welfare Magnets; and The New American Democracy. Three of his books have received major awards from the American Political Science Association. After receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago, he was a professor for many years there in the Departments of Political Science and Education. Peterson chaired the Social Science Research Council's Committee on the Urban Underclass and has served on many committees of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education, and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the German Marshall Foundation, and the Center for Study in the Behavioral Sciences. His various research projects have been supported by the Department of Education as well as the Achelis, Bradley, Bodman, Casey, Dillon, Ford, Fordham, Friedman, Gund, Hume, Packard, Olin, Rockefeller, Smith-Richardson, and Walton foundations. Most recently he was awarded the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation prize for Distinguished Scholarship, part of their Excellence in Education award program. He has also been appointed to a Department of Education independent review panel to advise the agency in evaluating the No Child Left Behind law.
Jon PRICE, K-12 Education Research and Evaluation Manager, Intel Education Initiative Jon Price has been the Research and Evaluation Manager for Henk KOK, Senior Education Advisor, Intel’s global K-12 education initiatives since 2003.
Designed to support a commitment to high quality education that promotes 21st century skills, teacher training and effective technology integration in classrooms around the world, Jon manages a series of rigorous program evaluations in order to ensure continuous, targeted improvement of all of Intel’s educational products and activities in the form of research grants for multiple Intel Education initiatives, such as Intel Teach, Intel Learn, and Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
The research compiled for these purposes has not only enabled Intel to improve and refine program development efforts, but now also comprises a rich body of evidence that leaders implementing Intel® Education Initiative programs can use to demonstrate program impact, gain program support and education reform.
Jon is a graduate of The University of New Mexico, Harvard Graduate School of Education and is a PhD candidate within the Texas A&M University College of Education. Jon currently lives in Albuquerque, NM with his wife and three children.
F. Halsey ROGERS, Senior Economist HALSEY ROGERS is a Senior Economist in the Development Research Group (Human Development and Public Services Team). His research over the past several years has focused on understanding the quality and determinants of service delivery, particularly through exploration of the behavior of and incentives for teachers, and he has recently begun new research on effectiveness of international aid. His past research and policy work has covered aid effectiveness and development approaches, human capital investment in East Asia, trade policy, economic history of financial markets, and the sources of entrepreneurship. He recently co-authored Growth and Empowerment: Making Development Happen (MIT Press, 2005), and has also authored numerous journal articles and edited two books. After joining the World Bank through the Young Professionals Program in 1996, he worked for more than four years in the Office of the Chief Economist as an advisor to former chief economists Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Stern. He previously served as a staff economist at the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors in Washington and at the Indonesian Ministry of Finance in Jakarta, and has held positions at UC Berkeley and at the Korea Development Institute in Seoul. He holds an AB from Princeton University, an MPP from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Chris SAKELLARIOU, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Chris SAKELLARIOU is an Associate Professor at the school of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where he resides since 1991. His areas of research are in the field of applied microeconomics with particular interest in the economics of education and gender issues. He has published in international journals, such as Applied Economics, Journal of Labor Research, Economics of Education Review, Labour and Education Economics, among others.
Tanya D. SCOBIE, Sector Operations Officer, IFC Tanya D. SCOBIE has over 10 years experience in education policy, and in financing and advise to the private education sector. She has been with IFC since 2000, working for the first five years as an Education Specialist on projects in more than 15 countries worldwide in IFC’s education investment department, and for the last two years working on IFC’s advisory services activities to the private education sector in Africa. This has included launching an innovative joint financing and advisory program to support the growth of private schools, and supporting the development and implementation of public-private partnerships in education. Prior to this Ms. Scobie worked with a US-based development consultancy on many USAID, Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank funded projects in education policy. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and a Masters of Public Policy, from Duke University, USA.
Emmanuel SKOUFIAS, Lead Economist Emmanuel SKOUFIAS is a Lead Economist at the Poverty Reduction Group of the World Bank. Mr. Skoufias has published more than 35 articles in economic journals and he specializes on impact evaluation, targeting, poverty measurement, urban and rural labor markets, land tenancy issues, and the role of risk mitigation and insurance in poverty alleviation. Other experience at the Bank includes a senior appointment at the Poverty and Gender Group in the Latin American and Carribean Region, where he worked on poverty and impact evaluation issues in Brazil, Mexico, and Guyana, and he co-directed two regional research projects, one on the redistributive role of public transfers in LAC, and another on Economic Opportunities for Indigenous Peoples in LAC. Prior to joining the World Bank, Emmanuel worked at the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) where he led a project evaluating the Education, Health, and Nutrition Program (PROGRESA) of the Government of Mexico. His academic experience includes appointments as an associate professor at the Economics Institute and the Economics Department of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and as an assistant professor of Economics at the Pennsylvania State University. Emmanuel earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota (1988) and his B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley (1981).
Emiliana VEGAS, Senior Education Economist Emiliana VEGAS is a Senior Education Economist in The World Bank's Human Development Department of the Latin America and the Caribbean Region. Her fields of interest include the economics of education, teacher labor markets, and the relationship between education policy and student outcomes. In her current position, she combines research with operational support in the Bank's social sector programs in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. She has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and is co-author with Jenny Petrow of the book, Raising Student Learning in Latin America: The Challenge for the 21st Century (forthcoming, 2007) as well as the editor of the book, Incentives to Improve Teaching: Lessons from Latin America (2005, The World Bank Press).
Ms. Vegas earned a doctorate in education from Harvard University with a concentration in economics of education. Prior to going to Harvard, Ms. Vegas worked in Research Triangle Institute’s Center for International Development. She has a master’s degree in public policy studies from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, Venezuela.
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