Person:
Mason, Andrew D.
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty,
Social Protection,
Labor Economics,
Gender Equality,
East Asia and Pacific
Degrees
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
September 20, 2023
Biography
Andrew D. Mason is deputy chief economist for the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Region.
He has carried out policy research on a range of issues, including poverty, social protection,
education and skills, labor, and gender equality. He is coauthor of several World Bank flagship
reports, including The Innovation Imperative for Developing East Asia; A Resurgent East
Asia: Navigating a Changing World; Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific:
A Companion to the World Development Report; and Informality: Exit and Exclusion, as
well as the World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, “Engendering Development: Through
Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice.” He has also been an affiliated professor
at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (now the McCourt School of Public Policy) of
Georgetown University. He holds a doctorate in applied economics from Stanford University
and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 12
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Publication
Rural Households in a Changing Climate
( 2013-01)This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and other environmental factors. Within this framework, the paper examines evidence from existing empirical literature to compose an initial picture of household-level strategies for adapting to climate change in rural settings. The authors find that although households possess numerous strategies for managing climate shocks and shifts, their adaptive capacity is insufficient for the task of maintaining -- let alone improving -- household welfare. They describe the role of public policy in fortifying the ability of rural households to adapt to a changing climate. -
Publication
Some Economic Consequences of Global Aging : A Discussion Note for the World Bank
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-12)The note describes the importance of population aging world-wide, clarifying its prevalence among middle- and low-income countries, which suggests that many developing countries are getting old before they are growing rich. The note then asks in what way population aging is an economic problem and what are the specific challenges facing developing countries in this process. The note argues against the common, time-bomb perception?, and clarifies how a simplistic extrapolation from the impact of aging on single programs such as public pensions gives a misleading impression about the more general macroeconomic consequences of population aging, where numerous elements contribute to a more nuanced result. The note briefly discusses various topics of importance in the population aging debate, including: intergenerational flows, social contracts, the risk management element of old-age policies, and the impact of aging on health care costs. The note seeks to share a number of counterintuitive or simply non-intuitive facts, including: (i) the large impact of declines in fertility on population aging (often more important than increases in longevity); (ii) the impact of increased life expectancy on working age populations (often larger than among old age populations); (iii) the positive impact of aging on capital intensity; (iv) the need to include education in assessments of intergenerational equity (these often simply look at who pays for old-age pensions and health services); and (v) the role of long-term care programs as insurance for risks faced by young adults. -
Publication
Impact of the Global Financial Crisis in Rural China : Gender, Off-farm Employment, and Wages
(Taylor and Francis, 2013-08-16)This contribution documents the effect of the global financial crisis on women's off-farm employment in China's rural labor force. It begins by comparing the difference between the actual off-farm employment rate and the off-farm employment rate under the assumption of “business as usual” (BAU – a counterfactual of what off-farm employment would have been in the absence of the crisis). The study also examines how the impact of the financial crisis hit different segments of the rural off-farm labor market. Using a primary dataset, the study found that the global financial crisis affected women workers. By April 2009, there was a 5.3 percentage point difference between off-farm employment under BAU and actual off-farm employment for women, and the monthly wages of women declined. Most of this impact affected migrant wage earners; however, the impact did not fall disproportionately on women. The recovery of women's employment was as fast as that of men's employment. -
Publication
Costa Rica - Recapturing Momentum for Poverty Reduction
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-10)Costa Rica is well-known for its socio-economic achievements with low levels of poverty and inequality by Latin American standards. It also performs well in health, access to improved water supplies, suitable housing and other basic services, including electricity and sanitation, relative to comparable countries. Nonetheless, the country faces important challenges in the on-going fight against poverty. -
Publication
Rural Households in a Changing Climate
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2013-08-01)This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and other environmental factors. Within this framework, we examine evidence from existing empirical literature to compose an initial picture of household-level strategies for adapting to climate change in rural settings. We find that although households possess numerous strategies for managing climate shocks and shifts, their adaptive capacity is insufficient for the task of maintaining—let alone improving—household welfare. We describe the role of public policy in fortifying the ability of rural households to adapt to a changing climate. -
Publication
Informality : Exit and Exclusion
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)Informality: exit and exclusion analyzes informality in Latin America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of its growth. The authors use two distinct but complementary lenses: informality driven by exclusion from state benefits or the circuits of the modern economy, and driven by voluntary 'exit' decisions resulting from private cost-benefit calculations that lead workers and firms to opt out of formal institutions. They find both lenses have considerable explanatory power to understand the causes and consequences of informality in the region. Informality: exit and exclusion concludes that reducing informality levels and overcoming the 'culture of informality' will require actions to increase aggregate productivity in the economy, reform poorly designed regulations and social policies, and increase the legitimacy of the state by improving the quality and fairness of state institutions and policies. Although the study focuses on Latin America, its analysis, approach, and conclusions are relevant for all developing countries. -
Publication
The Innovation Imperative for Developing East Asia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-02-23)After a half century of transformative economic progress that moved hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, countries in developing East Asia are facing an array of challenges to their future development. Slowed productivity growth, increased fragility of the global trading system, and rapid changes in technology are all threatening export-oriented, labor-intensive manufacturing—the region’s engine of growth. Significant global challenges—such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic—are exacerbating economic vulnerability. These developments raise questions about whether the region’s past model of development can continue to deliver rapid growth and poverty reduction. Against this background, The Innovation Imperative in Developing East Asia aims to deepen understanding of the role of innovation in future development. The report examines the state of innovation in the region and analyzes the main constraints that firms and countries face to innovating. It assesses current policies and institutions, and lays out an agenda for action to spur more innovation-led growth. A key finding of the report is that countries’ current innovation policies are not aligned with their capabilities and needs. Policies need to strengthen the capacity of firms to innovate and support technological diffusion rather than just invention. Policy makers also need to eliminate policy biases against innovation in services, a sector that is growing in economic importance. Moreover, countries need to strengthen key complementary factors for innovation, including firms’ managerial quality, workers’ skills, and finance for innovation. Countries in developing East Asia would also do well to deepen their tradition of international openness, which could foster openness in other parts of the world. Doing so would help sustain the flows of ideas, trade, investment, and people that facilitate the creation and diffusion of knowledge for innovation. -
Publication
Challenges of CAFTA : Maximizing the Benefits for Central America
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2006)The report provides a preliminary assessment of DR-CAFTA (the Dominican Republic and Central American Free trade Agreement), with particular attention to three key themes: (1) expected trade and non-trade benefits, (2) actions that Central American countries need to pursue to capitalize optimally on the new opportunities, and (3) identification of the population groups that may require assistance to adapt to a more competitive environment. The Introductory Chapter reviews the main findings of the report. Chapter 2 places DR-CAFTA in the historical context of the economic reforms that Central America has been undertaking since the late 1980s. Chapter 3 provides a summary overview of the recently negotiated DR-CAFTA. Chapter 4 reviews various analyses that assess the potential impacts of DR-CAFTA in Central American countries. Chapter 5 focuses on the identification of potentially affected populations from the easing of trade restrictions in sensitive agricultural products and analyzes policy options to assist vulnerable groups. Chapter 6 reviews evidence related to key macroeconomic implications of DR-CAFTA, namely the potential revenue losses and effect on the patterns of business-cycle synchronization. Chapter 7 reviews evidence from each Central American country in the areas of trade facilitation, institutional and regulatory reforms, and innovation and education, in order to identify key priorities for the complementary agenda for DR-CAFTA. -
Publication
A Resurgent East Asia: Navigating a Changing World
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019)East Asia has been a paragon of global development success. The dramatic transformation of the region over the past half century—with a succession of countries having progressed from low-income to middle-income and even to high-income status—has been built on what has come to be known as the “East Asian development model.” A combination of policies that fostered outward-oriented, labor-intensive growth while strengthening basic human capital and providing sound economic governance has been instrumental in moving hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into economic security. Yet East Asia’s economic resurgence remains incomplete. More than 90 percent of its people now live in 10 middle-income countries, many of which can realistically aspire to high-income status in the next generation or two. But these countries are still much less affluent and productive than their high-income counterparts. Even as the region’s middle-income countries attempt to move up to high-income status, they confront a rapidly changing global and regional economic environment. Slowing growth in global trade and shifts in its patterns, rapid technological change, and evolving country circumstances all present challenges to sustaining productivity growth, fostering inclusion, and enhancing state effectiveness. A Resurgent East Asia: Navigating a Changing World is about how policy makers across developing East Asia will need to adapt their development model to effectively address these challenges in the coming decade and sustain the region’s remarkable development performance. -
Publication
How Technology Adoption and Trade Are Shaping Indonesian Labor Markets
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12)This paper analyzes the simultaneous impacts and interplay of exports and technology adoption on the demand for different types of skills and aggregate labor market indicators in Indonesia over a period characterized by a commodity boom (2005-10) and a period of declining exports (2011-15). The results for the 2005-10 sub-period are in line with the evidence available for developed countries, that is, technology is complementary to analytical and soft skills and is labor-saving, while exports are labor increasing. In 2011-15, the relationship between technology and skills, and between technology and labor demand, differs from the evidence available for the developed world. That is, technology increases the demand for analytical and interpersonal skills in high-exporting industries only, and technology and exports are labor increasing for some population subgroups. The findings for the more recent period confirm that differences in economic structures matter for understanding the impacts of technological advances and globalization.