The Office of the Chief Economist Office provides a wide range of analytic, collaborative and advisory functions within the World Bank's Financial and Private Sector Development Vice Presidency. Current members of the research team are listed below. To contact the Office, please email Hedia Arbi at harbi@worldbank.org.

Asli Demirgüç-Kunt is the Director of Development Policy in the Development Economics Vice Presidency and Chief Economist of the Financial and Private Sector Network. After joining the Bank in 1989 as a Young Economist, she has been in different divisions of the Research Group, working on financial sector issues and advising on financial sector policy. She is the lead author of the World Bank Policy Research Report 2007, Finance for All? Policies and Pitfalls in Expanding Access.The author of over 100 publications, she has published widely in academic journals. Her research has focused on the links between financial development and firm performance and economic development. Banking crises, financial regulation, access to financial services, including SME finance, are among her areas of research. Prior to coming to the Bank, she was an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from the Ohio State University.

Martin Cihak is the Lead Economist in the FPD Chief Economist's office. He is the Task Team Leader for the Global Financial Development Report, the World Bank Group's new publication on financial sector development. Prior to joining the Bank, Martin Cihak has been a Deputy Division Chief in the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund. In his work so far, he has focused on issues relating to financial sector regulation and supervision, financial stability, and financial system reforms. He has covered these topics in numerous Fund (and Bank/Fund) missions and a range of publications. He was one of the co-editors of the Bank-Fund Financial Sector Assessment Handbook. Before joining the IMF in 2000, he was a chief analyst in a commercial bank, a university lecturer, and an advisor to a minister. He received a PhD in Economics from the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education, Prague and has MAs both in Economics and in Law. View recent publications by Martin Cihak.

Mary Hallward-Driemeier, a Canadian national, is Lead Economist for Financial and Private Sector Development in the World Bank Group. Since joining the World Bank as a Young Professional in 1997, she has published articles on entrepreneurship, firm productivity, the impact of the investment climate on firm performance, the impact of financial crises, and determinants of foreign direct investment. She was the Deputy Director for the World Development Report 2005: A Better Investment Climate for Everyone. She helped establish the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys Program, now covering over 100,000 enterprises in 100 countries. She is also a founding member of the Microeconomics of Growth Network. She is currently the Task Team Leader for the regional flagship report “Expanding Economic Opportunities for Women in Africa.” She received her M.Sc. in development economics from Oxford University and her Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T.

Cesar Calderon is Senior Economist in the FDP Chief Economist Office. He joined the World Bank in 2005 where he worked on diverse macroeconomic and development issues at the Regional Chief Economist Office for Latin America and the Caribbean Region at the World Bank. Prior to the Bank, he worked in the Research Department at the Central Bank of Chile and the Central Reserve Bank of Peru and was an invited Lecturer at the ILADES-Georgetown University Masters Program in Economics in Santiago, Chile. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rochester in 2002. He has published in the areas of Open Macroeconomics, Growth and Development. He is currently working in issues globalization, economic fluctuations, and financial development.

Martin Kanz, a German national, is an Economist in the FPD Office of the Chief Economist. Martin’s main areas of interest are banking and entrepreneurial finance in emerging markets. In his recent research, he uses field experiments to explore the effect of performance incentives on commercial bank lending. Prior to joining the World Bank, Martin has worked for the Investment Strategy Group at Goldman Sachs in New York. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in finance and economics and has managed several field studies and impact evaluations in the areas of behavioral economics and entrepreneurial finance, primarily in India. Martin received his MSc in Development Economics from Oxford and his AM and PhD from Harvard University.

Aart Kraay is Quality Control Advisor in the FPD Chief Economist’s Office and a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank. He joined the Bank in 1995 after earning a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, and a B.Sc. in economics from the University of Toronto. His research interests include international capital movements, growth and inequality, governance, and the Chinese economy. He has also worked for the China department of the World Bank and was a team member of the 2001 World Development Report 'Building Institutions for Markets'. He has taught courses in macroeconomics, international economics, and growth at Georgetown University, the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Subika Farazi is a Research Analyst in the FPD Chief Economist’s Office. Prior to joining the group, Subika worked with the FPD team of MENA region where she worked on regional flagship report on finance. Her work focused on studying the obstacles to SME financing and performance of state-owned banks in MENA. She also participated in a number of Financial Sector Assessment Programs for MENA countries. Subika's other research interests include the effects of government borrowing on private credit and private investment, and the impact of structural reforms on investment. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Economics and holds an MA in Economics from George Washington University.

Mauricio A. Pinzón Latorre, a Colombian citizen, works as Research Assistant in the Financial and Private Sector Development Chief Economist’s office. He joined the Bank in 2010 as a Consultant for the FPD Vice-Presidency after working as Research Fellow for the Research Department at the Inter-American Development Bank. He has also worked as an Advisor for the Colombian Ministry of Finance and Public Credit and as a Research Assistant for the Center of Economic Development Studies at Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. His research interests include financial structure and economic development, the impact of government intervention in finance, and the relationship between productivity and enterprise financial access. He received an M.A. and B.A. in Economics from Universidad de los Andes.