Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys

Person:
Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys

Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank

Author Name Variants

Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys, Lopez Acevedo, Gladys, López-Acevedo, Gladys

Fields of Specialization

Poverty, Jobs, Inequality, Microeconomic theory, Applied economics, Gender

ORCID

0000-0003-0116-1300

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Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank

Last updated: July 14, 2025

Biography

Gladys Lopez-Acevedo is a Lead Economist and a Program Lead at the World Bank in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. She works primarily in the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank. Gladys’ areas of analytical and operational interest include trade, welfare, gender, conflict, and jobs. Previously, she was a Lead Economist in the World Bank Chief Economist’s Office for the South Asian region (SARCE), and Senior Economist in the World Bank Central Vice Presidency Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) unit and in the Latin America region at the World Bank. She is a Research Fellow of the Institute for Labor Economics (I.Z.A); Mexican National Research System (S.N.I); and Economic Research Forum. Prior to joining the World Bank, she held high-level positions in the Government of Mexico and she was a professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). She holds a B.A in economics from ITAM and a Ph.D in economics from the University of Virginia.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 64

Exports, Labor Markets, and the Environment: Evidence from Brazil
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14) Góes, Carlos; Conceição, Otavio; Lara Ibarra, Gabriel; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys
What is the environmental impact of exports? Focusing on 2000–20, this paper combines customs, administrative, and census microdata to estimate employment elasticities with respect to exports. The findings show that municipalities that faced increased exports experienced faster growth in formal employment. The elasticities were 0.25 on impact, peaked at 0.4, and remained positive and significant even 10 years after the shock, pointing to a long and protracted labor market adjustment. In the long run, informal employment responds negatively to export shocks. Using a granular taxonomy for economic activities based on their environmental impact, the paper documents that environmentally risky activities have a larger share of employment than environmentally sustainable ones, and that the relationship between these activities and exports is nuanced. Over the short run, environmentally risky employment responds more strongly to exports relative to environmentally sustainable employment. However, over the long run, this pattern reverses, as the impact of exports on environmentally sustainable employment is more persistent.
The Economic Impacts of the Syrian Refugee Migration on Jordan: An Integration Perspective
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-10) Segnana, Juan; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys; Robertson, Raymond; Roche Rodriguez, Jaime Alfonso
The Syrian Civil War in 2011 led to a substantial influx of refugees into Jordan, with more than 660,000 Syrians arriving by 2015. More than half of these refugees were of working age. This study shows that Syrian refugees have less education than their Jordanian counterparts, and policies attempted to help them to assimilate into manufacturing. The study tests two hypotheses related to refugee assimilation. The first hypothesis examines the 2016 Jordan Compact with the European Union, which aimed to integrate Syrian refugees and improve Jordan’s export profile with simplified rules of origin for certain industries. If the Jordan Compact was effective, a relative increase in exports to the European Union, compared to other regions, would be expected. The second hypothesis suggests that the successful integration of Syrian workers into the manufacturing sector contributed to a boost in manufacturing exports to all destinations relative to other exports. The study conducts a gravity difference-in-differences analysis to evaluate these two hypotheses. The findings show little, if any, evidence supporting the first hypothesis but strong support for the second. These findings suggest that although the simplified rules of origin had limited impact on exports to the European Union, the Jordanian government effectively integrated Syrian workers into the manufacturing sector. Labor force surveys indicate that a skill mismatch impeded the integration of Syrian workers into the industries targeted by the Jordan Compact, but refugees were successfully assimilated into the manufacturing industry.
Dynamic Exports and Labor Markets for Inclusive Growth in Cambodia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-09) Kokas, Deeksha; Roche Rodriguez, Jaime Alfonso; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys; Robertson, Raymond; Karamba, Wendy
Cambodia’s rapid economic growth in the past few decades has coincided with trade liberalization and structural transformation. This growth has been extensively associated with more employment, higher wages, shared prosperity, and poverty reduction. By combining two complementary approaches, the gravity model and the Bartik model, this paper estimates: (i) the relationship between trade agreements and trade flows, and (ii) the relationship between trade exposure and various local labor market outcomes. The gravity estimates show that trade agreements between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are positively related with trade flows, and that Cambodia’s specific gains from these increases in trade have been larger than for the average trade agreement. This has led to better results for workers in Cambodia’s local labor markets. The shift-share Bartik results suggest that increases in trade exposure in Cambodian districts between 2009 and 2019 correlate with reduced informality and an increase in hours worked, with more positive effects for female workers.
Export and Labor Market Outcomes: A Supply Chain Perspective — Evidence from Viet Nam
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-19) Kokas, Deeksha; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys; Vu, Ha
Are changes in the labor market in response to changes in exports contained specifically within exporting industries, or do they disperse throughout the economy through supply chain linkages This paper studies the case of Viet Nam, an example of a successful export-led growth economy, to examine this question. Combining UN COMTRADE data, input-output tables from the Global Trade Analysis Project, and 2010 to 2019 annual labor force survey data for Viet Nam, the study constructed a measure of each worker’s total exposure to export shocks. The measure accounts for changes due to both direct export exposure (increase in exports in the worker’s own industry) and indirect exposure (from increased exports in other industries that use inputs from the worker’s industry). Estimates of the repercussions from increasing exports on labor market outcomes show that both direct and indirect exposure significantly increase workers’ wages and employment, while reducing inactivity and inequality. Wage premiums for attending college decrease, and the gender wage gap narrows. Wages increase more for the lowest-income workers and employment gains accrue more to unskilled workers, while employment decreases for more skilled workers.
Informality and Inclusive Growth in the Middle East and North Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-08) Sinha, Nistha; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys; Ranzani, Marco; Elsheikhi, Adam
The long-standing informality debate in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region has taken on a new urgency as it looks for a pathway to more socially inclusive growth that is less reliant on fossil fuels. This is occurring against a backdrop of subpar labor market outcomes, further growth setbacks, and deteriorating fiscal and current account de ficits in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic—and in the wake of high in flation and supply chain disruptions triggered by the Russian Federation–Ukraine war. "Informality and Inclusive Growth in the Middle East and North Africa" aims to better understand the characteristics and incentive structure that have led to the prevalence of informal employment in three MENA countries—the Arab Republic of Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. The report breaks new ground by adopting a comprehensive perspective to focus on the features of, and interrelationships among, different aspects of these countries’ institutional landscapes to make sense of the complex incentive structure that workers and firms face when deciding between formal and informal options. Specifically, the report groups these issues in three broad realms:(1) entrepreneur-worker relations, (2) taxes and transfers, and (3) market conditions.
Trade Restructuring: Assessing Labor Market and Welfare Effects
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25) Abreha, Kaleb; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys
This paper assesses patterns and drivers of current trade restructuring and its welfare implications. The main trade restructuring drivers include lower cost advanced technologies, rising offshore labor costs, and recent shocks like COVID-19, trade disputes, and geopolitical tensions. Data on bilateral trade flows show that the United States and the European Union have reoriented their trade relationships. Between 2017 and 2023, for example, U.S. imports from countries like Mexico and Viet Nam grew significantly, whereas imports from China and Japan declined significantly. Market reallocation stems from tariffs, trade restrictions, and large-scale industrial policies. Countries with greater competitiveness, high logistics capabilities, and technological readiness are emerging as new production hubs. Additionally, restructuring is having significant welfare effects. Automation has increased reshoring and increased wage inequality between high- and low-skilled workers in offshoring countries, reduced export demand, and led to job and income losses in offshore countries. Furthermore, protectionist measures have, predictably, decreased welfare. U.S.-China trade tensions, for example, raised U.S. consumer costs, reduced product variety, generated small tariff revenue, and forced exporters to absorb most of the retaliatory tariffs. Looking ahead, more evidence is needed on the long-run effects from restructuring and its effects on welfare. Meanwhile, policy dialogue should focus on preventing trade fragmentation and mitigating adverse welfare effects.
Local Labor Market Dynamics and Export Shocks: Theory and Evidence from Indonesia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-01) Góes, Carlos; Segnana, Juan; Robertson, Raymond; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys
This paper studies the dynamic effects of export exposure on local labor markets in Indonesia, that is, how an increase in exports affects a range of labor market indicators over time. The paper develops an empirical strategy to instrument exposure to foreign demand shocks and validates it by showing that labor market responses are consistent with what a quantitative spatial model would predict after demand shocks. The results show that employment, labor force, real wages, and real wage bills increase more in districts that are more exposed to foreign demand shocks—that is, where exports increase more—relative to the least exposed regions. Extending the analysis over multiple response horizons shows that these shocks persist six years after the foreign demand shock. Lastly, employment responses are stronger among skilled workers relative to unskilled workers and in the formal sector relative to the informal sector.
Exports to Jobs: Morocco’s Trade Patterns and Local Labor Market Outcomes
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-07) Roche Rodriguez, Jaime Alfonso; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys; Robertson, Raymond; Zárate, Daniela Ruiz
Morocco’s trade liberalization policies coincided with macroeconomic growth over the past two decades. The relationship between trade liberalization and individual-level labor market outcomes, however, are not well understood. By combining three complementary approaches and modeling techniques, this paper estimates (i) the relationship between trade agreements and trade flows, (ii) the relationship between trade exposure and various local labor market outcomes, and (iii) the relationship between firm employment and exports. The results show that tariffs have fallen and trade as a share of gross domestic product has increased. Morocco’s trade agreements, however, are not always associated with higher trade flows. Furthermore, trade has led to mixed results for workers. Increased trade has decreased informality but may have adversely affected female labor force participation. Trade liberalization seems to have induced a shift from female labor-intensive industries, such as apparel, to capital-intensive sectors that are predominantly male-intensive. The firm-level analysis confirms these results by showing that increases in employment from exports has occurred mainly in male, capital-intensive sectors.
Exports and Labor Demand: Evidence from Egyptian Firm-Level Data
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-10) Berg, Claudia N.; Robertson, Raymond; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys
Unlike many countries, the Arab Republic of Egypt did not experience significant labor market improvements following trade liberalization. This paper investigates why increased Egyptian exports did not directly increase employment. To illustrate the relationship between firm-level exporting and employment, the paper presents a simplified general equilibrium model with two sectors: one able to export and one “reserve” sector. The paper tests the implications of this theory using firm-level data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys in 2013, 2016, and 2020. The firm-level microanalysis demonstrates that although there is a positive employment response to export expansion, it does not occur at a large enough scale to be felt at the macro level. To seize the benefits of trade, Egypt requires deeper business environment reforms to incentivize large export, labor-intensive sector growth and integrate its economy into global value chains.
Gender-Segmented Labor Markets and Trade Shocks
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-07-19) Góes, Carlos; Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys; Robertson, Raymond
Gender segmentation in labor markets shapes the local effects of international trade. This paper develops a theory that embeds trade in gender-segmented labor markets and shows that in this framework, foreign demand shocks may increase or decrease the female-to-male employment ratio. If a foreign demand shock from a relevant market happens in a female-intensive (male-intensive) sector, the model predicts that the female-to-male employment ratio should increase (decrease). The paper then uses plausibly exogenous variation in the exposure of Tunisian local labor markets to foreign demand shocks and shows that the empirical results are consistent with the theoretical prediction. In Tunisia, a country with a high degree of gender segmentation in the labor markets, foreign demand shocks have been relatively larger in male-intensive sectors. This induced a decrease in the female-to-male employment ratio, with households likely substituting female for male labor supply.