Person:
Lebrand, Mathilde

Last updated: February 21, 2025

Biography

Mathilde Lebrand is a senior economist in the Prospects Group, a unit of the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice Presidency. She is also a member of the team producing the 2024 World Development Report on economic growth in middle-income countries. Previously, she worked in the Infrastructure Chief Economist and the Europe and Central Asia Chief Economist units. Her research focuses on economic geography, transport, and trade. She has taught at the University of Montreal and worked at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. She holds a PhD in economics from the European University Institute.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 20

Shrinking Economic Distance: Understanding How Markets and Places Can Lower Transport Costs in Developing Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-19) Herrera Dappe, Matías; Lebrand, Mathilde; Stokenberga, Aiga
Despite the reduction in transport costs over the past few decades, creating a single integrated economy remains elusive. Low- and middle-income countries face higher transport prices than high-income countries for both international and domestic shipments, and shipping times are longer and less reliable. Tackling the problem can increase income and general welfare in low- and middle-income countries, improving the lives of the people who live there. “Shrinking Economic Distance: Understanding How Markets and Places Can Lower Transport Costs in Developing Countries” makes a unique contribution by assessing the main determinants of shippers’ economic costs of freight transport—economic distance—and identifying the frictions that keep transport prices above an efficient level, shipping times high, and reliability low. Drawing on new analyses and compiling many others, the book provides important evidence to inform the design of policies to reduce the economic costs of transport and deepen the economic integration of developing countries. This book shows how understanding the frictions driving the economic costs of freight transport can help policy makers target reforms in the areas in which they can have the greatest impact and avoid unintended consequences. It lays out the building blocks for a reform agenda to reduce economic distance, which includes first making markets and then making places efficient. “Shrinking Economic Distance” will be of enormous value to policy makers, practitioners, and academics interested in freight transport and economic integration.
Trade and Infrastructure Integration in Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-28) Fontagné, Lionel; Lebrand, Mathilde; Murray, Siobhan; Santoni, Gianluca; Ruta, Michele
Economic integration of the African continent rests on two pillars: the ratification of an ambitious trade agreement and massive investment in transportation infrastructure. Leveraging a newly created city-level database on African exporters’ transport times, transport route optimization and general equilibrium modeling of international trade, the paper quantifies the impact of greater trade and transport integration in Africa. A pan-African agreement, such as the African Continental Free Trade Area, would increase African countries’ exports by an average of 3.4 percent and increase gross domestic product by 0.6 percent. Complementing trade integration by reducing transportation time on roads, ports and border posts would increase exports by 11.5 percent and increase gross domestic product by 2 percent. Major transport investments are necessary to reap the full benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Road Investment and Violence in DRC: Perishable Peace Dividends
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-21) Lebrand, Mathilde; Mueller, Hannes; Schouten, Peer; Steinbuks, Jevgenijs
This paper explores the effect of road rehabilitation on violent conflict using a novel, rich dataset of road rehabilitation projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country received massive external investments in transport infrastructure rehabilitation under conditions of endemic conflict, often with the explicit objective of supporting peacebuilding objectives. The paper finds that investments in road rehabilitation deter violence, which decreases significantly by around 5 to 10 percentage points after the completion of road rehabilitation. However, another significant finding, based on large-scale machine learning analysis of remote sensing data of road quality over time, is that the peace dividend of infrastructure investments is perishable: violence increases again as roads progressively deteriorate. Improved durability and systematic maintenance of roads are thus necessary to extend the “peace dividend” of road investments.
Infrastructure and Structural Change in Africa
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-03-08) Herrera Dappe, Matías; Lebrand, Mathilde
Past investments in electricity, Internet, and road infrastructure, in isolation and bundled, have contributed to structural transformation and economic development in Africa. Using new data on the expansion of the road, electricity, and Internet networks over the past two decades, the paper shows that having access to both paved roads and electricity has led to a significant reallocation of labor from agricultural to both manufacturing and services. Adding access to fast Internet has had a major impact on structural change, with an even larger impact on reallocating labor away from agriculture. The paper then uses a spatial general-equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of future regional transport investments, bundled with electricity and Internet investments, on economic development in countries in the Horn of Africa and Lake Chad region.
Energy Price Shocks and Current Account Balances: Evidence from Emerging Market and Developing Economies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-12-05) Lebrand, Mathilde; Vasishtha, Garima; Yilmazkuday, Hakan
This paper investigates the effects of real energy price shocks on the current account balances of 45 emerging market and developing economies using country-specific structural vector autoregression models. The empirical results suggest that a 1 percent increase in real oil prices results in up to 0.11 percentage point cumulative improvement in the current account balances of oil exporters after five years, while a similar shock to real natural gas prices results in up to 0.06 percentage point improvement in the current account balances of natural gas exporters after five years. Real coal price shocks result in higher current account balances of oil exporters and natural gas exporters, suggesting substitution of coal with oil and natural gas in such cases. When the contributions of alternative real energy prices to the variance of current account balances are compared, oil price shocks dominate those of natural gas and coal prices. On the source of oil price shocks, the results support the view that the effects of oil demand shocks on current account balances are different from those of oil supply shocks. The results are robust to alternative specifications and identification schemes.
Does Africa Need More Roads in the Digital Age?: Evidence of Complementarities in Infrastructure
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-22) Lebrand, Mathilde; Mongoue, Arcady; Pongou, Roland; Zhang, Fan
This paper investigates whether the expansion of fast internet networks complements or substitutes for the development of roads to improve market access and create more and higher-skilled jobs in Africa. The paper combines the geographic locations of households and firms with the locations of main roads and optical-fiber nodes in 25 Sub-Saharan African countries. Using the difference-in-differences and instrumental variables approaches and leveraging the history of post-independence road building and the timing of the arrival of submarine internet, the paper examines the impacts of access to these two types of infrastructure, both in isolation and in combination. The findings show that improving access to both has large and positive complementary effects. On average, the additional impacts on employment from combining access to both types of infrastructure are 22 percent larger than the sum of their isolated effects. The findings suggest that a big push for combined investments in fast internet and road access could enhance economic development in Africa overall. Firms and workers in urban locations, female workers, and workers with higher levels of education gain the most from the complementarities that emerge.
Corridors without Borders in West Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11) Lebrand, Mathilde
This paper estimates the welfare gains from upgrading several major regional corridors in West Africa. It uses a quantitative economic geography framework with trade within and across countries and mobility of people within countries to assess the economic impacts of the reduction in trade costs from road and border infrastructure investments. The findings show that the upgrade of Dakar-Lagos regional road corridor brings sizable economic benefits relative to investment costs, with a benefit-cost ratio estimated around 3. The economic benefits of road corridor upgrades are doubled and more widely spread when combined with measures to reduce current massive border delays. The benefits are negligible for Nigeria, but large for small fragile states (Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). The gains are highest for corridors connecting large economies, and smaller and more fragile countries gain proportionally more from accessing larger markets. Finally, regional investments, including border time reduction policies, will reduce spatial inequality in the whole region but might increase inequality in some countries.
Rising Incomes, Transport Demand, and Sector Decarbonization
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04) Lebrand, Mathilde
As income increases, people become more mobile and spend more on carbon-intensive transport goods and services. This paper estimates income elasticities of transport consumption using household survey data for 18 countries, which are then used to simulate transport carbon footprint and carbon inequality by 2035. It first shows that in low- and middle-income countries (i) many households mostly walk and do not use transport services, (ii) income elasticity of private transport expenditure is high, and (iii) many households do not own a car. Both results suggest a future steep growth of emissions as incomes expand. Using estimates of income elasticities of vehicle ownership and vehicle use, the paper shows that carbon footprint will increase on average by 52 percent for these countries as incomes reach their 2035 levels. Finally, it decomposes carbon dioxide emissions along the within-country income distribution. Car ownership and carbon dioxide emissions are highly concentrated at the top. By 2035, carbon inequality will increase in some countries but decrease in others. Such results can be used for modeling future distributional implications of climate and energy policies.
Infrastructure Matters: Complementarities with the Quality of Health Service Delivery in Kenya
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) Luna, Laura Becerra; Lebrand, Mathilde; Pkhikidze, Nino; Yi Chang, Andres
In many low- and middle-income countries, the lack of access to essential infrastructure such as roads, electricity, and information and communications technology may hinder the provision of many critical services such as health care. For instance, scarce and deficient roads might limit the patients’ access to health facilities, restrict the supply of qualified staff, and constrict access to key inputs such as medicines and vaccines. Likewise, lack of reliable electricity and internet connection may limit the ability of health facilities to power essential equipment, have better access to information, potentially serve more patients, and manage their supply chain efficiently. This paper combines exhaustive health facility surveys with geospatial data to study the extent to which better access to infrastructure in Kenya might improve the functioning of health care facilities and the quality of their services. First, the paper documents the gap in access to infrastructure in the health care sector in Kenya and reviews the literature on this topic. Then, using a novel data set, it finds that access to electricity and good quality roads is associated with more accurate provider diagnostics for both general illnesses and those primarily affecting children and pregnant women. Additionally, access to electricity is associated with (i) higher availability of vaccines for children—mostly by making it possible to have a working fridge, which is essential to store most vaccines; and (ii) higher availability of essential and priority medicines, by facilitating the use of information and communications technology for supply chain management. Finally, access to good quality roads, electricity and use of information and communications technology for supply management are positively related to the availability of antenatal care tests for pregnant women. Overall, the results suggest that increased investment in infrastructure and communications technologies may improve health service provision in Kenya.
Infrastructure and Structural Change in the Lake Chad Region
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-01) Lebrand, Mathilde
Access to infrastructure supports economic development through structural transformation. This paper investigates the links between investments in electricity, Internet, and transport infrastructure, in isolation and bundled, and economic development in the Lake Chad Region. Using data on the expansion of the paved road, electricity, and Internet networks over the past two decades and two instruments, it provides reduced-form estimates of the impacts of infrastructure investments on the sectoral composition of employment. Bundled infrastructure investments cause different patterns of structural transformation than isolated infrastructure investments. Bundled paved road and electricity investments is found to have reduced the agricultural employment share by 22 percentage points and increased the share of employment mostly in services. The paper then uses a spatial general equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of future regional transport investments, bundled with a large rural electrification program and trade facilitation measures to reduce border delays, on economic development in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad.