Person:
Damania, Richard

Sustainable Development Practice Group, The World Bank
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Fields of Specialization
Development Economics, Environmental Economics, Natural Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, Water Economics, Game Theory
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Last updated November 29, 2023
Biography
Richard Damania is the Chief Economist of the Sustainable Development Practice Group. He has held several positions in the World Bank including as Senior Economic Advisor in the Water Practice, Lead Economist in the Africa Region’s Sustainable Development Department, in the South Asia and Latin America and Caribbean Regions of the World Bank. His work has spanned across multiple sectors and has helped the World Bank become an acknowledged thought-leader on matters relating to environment, water and the economy. Prior to joining the World Bank he held positions in academia and has published extensively with over 100 papers in scientific journals.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Transport, Economic Growth, and Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Spatial Analysis
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01-13) Damania, Richard ; Barra, Alvaro Federico ; Burnouf, Mathilde ; Russ, Jason Daniel
    The purpose of this study is to demonstrate several techniques which can be used to evaluate pathways to sustainable growth in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) via infrastructure improvement. Decades of conflict and neglect have left the DRC’s transport infrastructure amongst the sparsest and most dilapidated in the world.
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    Putting the Green Back in Greenbacks: Opportunities for a Truly Green Stimulus
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07) Taheripour, Farzad ; Chepeliev, Maksym ; Damania, Richard ; Farole, Thomas ; Lozano Gracia, Nancy ; Russ, Jason Daniel
    Can countries reorient their productive capacity to become more environmentally friendly and inclusive? To investigate this question, this paper uses a standard input-output modeling framework and data from 141 countries and regions to construct a new global data set of employment, value-added, greenhouse gas emissions (disaggregated into carbon dioxide and non-carbon dioxide elements), and air pollution (including nine categories of air pollutants such as fine particulate matter multipliers from supply-side investments. The analysis finds that many of the traditional sectors in agriculture and industry have large employment multipliers, but also generate male dominant, lower skill employment, and tend to have higher emissions multipliers. It is in economies dominated by these sectors that trade-offs to a “greener” transition will emerge most sharply. However, the analysis finds substantial heterogeneity in outcomes, so even in these economies, there exist other sectors with high employment multipliers and low emissions, including sectors that are more conducive to female employment. In addition, the analysis finds a high correlation between industries that generate greenhouse gas emissions, which cause long-term climate impacts, and those that generate air pollution, which have immediate harmful impacts on human health, suggesting that policies could be designed to confer longer climate benefits simultaneously with immediate health improvements. The results confirm some of the findings from recent research and shed new light on opportunities for greening economies.