Person:
Fay, Marianne
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Urban economics,
Infrastructure economics,
Climate change
Degrees
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
April 12, 2023
Biography
Marianne Fay, an economist specializing in sustainable development, is the World Bank director for Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. She has 25 years’ experience in different regions of the world, contributing to knowledge on and the search for development solutions in the areas of infrastructure, urbanization, climate change, green growth and poverty reduction.
She has published and edited several books and articles, including the “World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change,” and the report “Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean: Recent Developments and Key Challenges.”
Marianne is a U.S.-French binational.
Publication Search Results
1 - 4 of 4
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Publication
Green Industrial Policies : When and How
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-10)Green industrial policies can be defined as industrial policies with an environmental goal -- or more precisely, as sector-targeted policies that affect the economic production structure with the aim of generating environmental benefits. This paper provides a framework to assess their desirability depending on the effectiveness and political acceptability of price instruments. The main messages are the following. (i) Greening growth processes to the extent and with the speed needed cannot be done without industrial policies, even if prices can be adjusted to reflect environmental objectives. (ii) "Sunrise" green industrial policies are needed because they support the development of critical new technologies and sectors, bring down costs, and allow for reduced emissions in the short term even in the absence of carbon pricing. (iii) "Sunset" green industrial policies and trade policies may be needed in conjunction with safety nets to make carbon pricing politically or socially acceptable. They can help mitigate the impact of a carbon price on competitiveness and unemployment and smooth the transition by helping industries adjust to the new conditions. (iv) Green or not, industrial policy requires carefully navigating the twin dangers of market and governance failure. The viability of supported technologies and sectors is difficult to assess through a market-test given their dependence on continued environmental policies or pricing -- such as a carbon price. Particular attention must be paid to avoid potential unintended negative effects, such as rebound effects (especially if prices are inappropriate), misallocation of capital, or capture and rent-seeking behaviors. -
Publication
Climate Change and Poverty : An Analytical Framework
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11)Climate change and climate policies will affect poverty reduction efforts through direct and immediate impacts on the poor and by affecting factors that condition poverty reduction, such as economic growth. This paper explores this relation between climate change and policies and poverty outcomes by examining three questions: the (static) impact on poor people's livelihood and well-being; the impact on the risk for non-poor individuals to fall into poverty; and the impact on the ability of poor people to escape poverty. The paper proposes four channels that determine household consumption and through which households may escape or fall into poverty (prices, assets, productivity, and opportunities). It then discusses whether and how these channels are affected by climate change and climate policies, focusing on the exposure, vulnerability, and ability to adapt of the poor (and those vulnerable to poverty). It reviews the existing literature and offers three major conclusions. First, climate change is likely to represent a major obstacle to a sustained eradication of poverty. Second, climate policies are compatible with poverty reduction provided that (i) poverty concerns are carefully taken into account in their design and (ii) they are accompanied by the appropriate set of social policies. Third, climate change does not modify how poverty policies should be designed, but it creates greater needs and more urgency. The scale issue is explained by the fact that climate will cause more frequent and more severe shocks; the urgency, by the need to exploit the window of opportunity given to us before climate impacts are likely to substantially increase. -
Publication
Economic Structure, Productivity, and Infrastructure Quality in Southern Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-10)There are large and sustained differences in the economic performance of sub-national regions in most countries. The authors examine the economic structure and productivity in Southern Mexico and compare it with the rest of the country. The authors use firm level data from Mexican manufacturing to test the relative importance of firm level characteristics (such as human capital and technology adoption) compared with external characteristics (such as infrastructure quality and regulatory environment) in explaining productivity differentials. The authors find that the economic structure of Southern Mexico is considerably different from the rest of the country, with the economic landscape dominated by micro enterprises and a relative specialization in low productivity activities. This, coupled with low skill levels and fewer skill upgrading opportunities, reduces the performance of Southern firms. Productivity differentials between Southern firms and others, however, only exist for micro enterprises. The econometric analysis shows that while employee training and technology adoption enhance productivity, access to markets by improving transport infrastructure that link urban areas also have important productivity effects. -
Publication
From Growth to Green Growth : A Framework
( 2011-11-01)Green growth is about making growth processes resource-efficient, cleaner and more resilient without necessarily slowing them. This paper aims at clarifying these concepts in an analytical framework and at proposing foundations for green growth. The green growth approach proposed here is based on (1) focusing on what needs to happen over the next 5-10 years before the world gets locked into patterns that would be prohibitively expensive and complex to modify and (2) reconciling the short and the long term, by offsetting short-term costs and maximizing synergies and economic co-benefits. This, in turn, increases the social and political acceptability of environmental policies. This framework identifies channels through which green policies can potentially contribute to economic growth. However, only detailed country- and context-specific analyses for each of these channels could reach firm conclusion regarding their actual impact on growth. Finally, the paper discusses the policies that can be implemented to capture these co-benefits and environmental benefits. Since green growth policies pursue a variety of goals, they are best served by a combination of instruments: price-based policies are important but are only one component in a policy tool-box that can also include norms and regulation, public production and direct investment, information creation and dissemination, education and moral suasion, or industrial and innovation policies.