Ianchovichina, Elena Ivanova

Person:
Ianchovichina, Elena Ivanova

Jobs – Cross-cutting Solution Area

Fields of Specialization

Inclusive Growth, International Economics, Trade Policy, Development Economics

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0000-0001-5046-5103

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Jobs – Cross-cutting Solution Area

Last updated: January 26, 2024

Biography

Elena Ianchovichina is a lead economist in the jobs cross-cutting solution group of the World Bank. She was previously the deputy chief economist and lead economist for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East and North Africa Regions of the World Bank. Elena’s work focuses on policies for inclusive growth – a concept she helped define and link to productive employment in 2009. Since then, she has led research on various dimensions of inclusive growth, such as the geography of productive employment, spatial inequality, migration and trade frictions, residential segregation, middle-class dynamics, infrastructure and job creation, political risk and sectoral foreign investment, polarization and conflict, and ways to boost female employment. Prior to 2009 Elena worked in the World Bank’s Trade Research Group, the East Asia and Pacific Region, and the Economic Policy and Debt Department, where she focused on growth, fiscal sustainability, and trade reform. Her research has been published in books and scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of International Business Studies, World Bank Economic Review, and Review of Income and Wealth. Elena holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University, which named her Distinguished Woman Scholar in 2022.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 58

The Evolving Geography of Productivity and Employment: Ideas for Inclusive Growth through a Territorial Lens in Latin America and the Caribbean
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-01-25) Ianchovichina, Elena
The Evolving Geography of Productivity and Employment: Ideas for Inclusive Growth through a Territorial Lens in Latin America and the Caribbean employs a territorial lens to understand the persistently low economic growth rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Using new data and methods, it shows that deindustrialization, distance, and divisions offer intertwined explanations for an urban productivity paradox in the LAC region: its highly dense cities should be among the world’s most productive, yet they are not. LAC cities have been held back by lack of dynamism, poor connectivity, and divisions into disconnected poor and affluent neighborhoods. Deindustrialization has shifted urban employment, especially in the largest LAC cities, away from manufacturing and toward less dynamic, low-productivity nontradable activities, such as retail trade and personal and other services, that profit less from agglomeration, especially in highly congested cities. Although employment in urban tradable services has risen, the increase has not been strong enough to offset the decline in manufacturing employment. Meanwhile, intercity connectivity issues have undermined the performance of the region’s network of cities by restricting market access and firms’ ability to benefit from specialization in smaller cities. Within cities, poor connectivity and residential labor market segregation have limited the gains from agglomeration to neighborhoods in central business districts where formal firms operate. Informality has persisted in low-income neighborhoods, where residents face multiple deprivations. By contrast, many agricultural and mining areas have benefited from the strong demand for commodities by China and other fast-growing economies, particularly during the Golden Decade (2003–13), leading to a decline in territorial inequality in most countries in the region. The report concludes that to encourage inclusive growth, countries must more efficiently transform natural wealth into human capital, infrastructure, and institutions and improve the competitiveness of the urban economy. It then sketches out the contours of such a development strategy, identifying policy priorities at the national, regional, and local levels.
The Promise of Integration: Opportunities in a Changing Global Economy
(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-04-04) Riera-Crichton, Daniel; Maloney, William F.; Ianchovichina, Elena Ivanova; Beylis, Guillermo; Vuletin, Guillermo
The Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region has proved to be relatively resilient in the face of increased debt stress, stubborn inflation, and uncertainty arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Income and employment have largely recovered from the pandemic, poverty has receded, and markets remain guardedly optimistic about the near future. However, global uncertainty is rising, including a recent wave of bank failures in the US and Europe. Strengthening resilience, both on the health and macroeconomic fronts, will be paramount. Progress remains pending in both vaccination coverage and health system preparedness, while the institutionality of macroeconomic policy in some countries is being questioned. The evolution of the global economy is providing two new areas of opportunity for the region: the trend toward nearshoring-moving production closer to the US and European markets-and the imperative to combat climate change, which is giving the region a new comparative advantage in sun, wind, hydro, and natural capital. Taking advantage of these will require greater integration into the global economy. Yet, paradoxically, in the face of these opportunities. LAC is becoming less integrated. Trade intensity has largely stagnated, and foreign direct investment (FDI) to most countries has declined. Beyond the long-term structural reforms needed to reduce systemic risk, raise the level and quality of education, invest in infrastructure, and ensure well-functioning financial markets, this report calls to preserve the reputational gains of the past 20 years in terms of macro stability and streamlining regulation dealing with customs and transport to lower the cost of doing business in the region. Export promotion agencies and investment promotion agencies can also help as they have proven track records. A comprehensive approach to both shorter- and longer-term reforms could move LAC toward a renewed and more dynamic engagement with the global economy.
Consumption Cities versus Production Cities: New Considerations and Evidence
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-06) Jedwab, Remi; Ianchovichina, Elena; Haslop, Federico
Cities dramatically vary in their sectoral composition across the world, possibly lending credence to the theory that some cities are production cities with high employment shares of urban tradables while others are consumption cities with high employment shares of urban non-tradables. A model of structural change highlights three paths leading to the rise of consumption cities: resource rents from exporting fuels and mining products, agricultural exports, and premature deindustrialization. These findings appear to be corroborated using both country- and city-level data. Compared to cities in industrialized countries, cities of similar sizes in resource-rich and deindustrializing countries have lower shares of employment in manufacturing, tradable services, and the formal sector, and higher shares of employment in non-tradables and the informal sector. Results on the construction of “vanitous” tall buildings provide additional evidence on the relationship between resource exports and consumption cities. Finally, the evidence suggests that having mostly consumption cities might have economic implications for a country.
Spatial Development and Mobility Frictions in Latin America: Theory-Based Empirical Evidence
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-05) Conte, Bruno; Ianchovichina, Elena
Using fine-grained spatial data and a dynamic spatial general equilibrium model, this paper assesses the magnitude of mobility frictions in Latin America as well as the effects of their reduction on spatial development in the region. The results suggest that in most Latin American countries, migration frictions calibrated based on spatially differentiated initial utility are on average smaller and less dispersed than those obtained assuming uniform within-country initial utility. A reduction in trade costs due to optimal investments in road infrastructure in most Latin American countries increases the present discounted value of real per capita income on average in the region by 15.1 percent. This effect is larger than the effects obtained with static quantitative trade models because of substantial dynamic gains. By contrast, a reduction in migration entry costs in the most productive and more populous locations in the Latin American countries has a negligible effect on the present discounted value of the region’s real per capita income, reflecting the relatively small dispersion in domestic migration frictions and their relatively low levels in top locations. In both counterfactuals, the welfare increases are significantly larger than the increases in real per capita output because the reductions in mobility frictions allow people to relocate to areas with better amenities and therefore derive higher utility. These results suggest that trade costs, not migration barriers, represent a major constraint to the efficient spatial distribution of economic activity and growth in Latin America.
Anatomy of Brazil’s Subjective Well-Being: A Tale of Growing Discontent and Polarization in the 2010s
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-02) Burger, Martijn; Hendriks, Martijn; Ianchovichina, Elena
After increasing for years and reaching high levels, Brazil’s subjective well-being deteriorated following the economic contraction in 2015. Using data from the Gallup World Poll for the 2010s, this paper identifies the factors that underpin Brazil’s subjective well-being and its change, paying special attention to heterogeneity across population groups. Having sufficient income, financial security, economic optimism, satisfaction with living standards and health services, social capital, tertiary education, and digital access are the main factors associated with subjective well-being. These factors matter to different extents along the income distribution and across generations and space. The decline in subjective well-being since 2015 was heterogeneous and more pronounced among men, rural residents, and the old. Economic expectations increased in importance as they assumed a greater role in people’s preferences, especially those of men, and more people grew pessimistic about the economic outlook. The decline in subjective well-being and the switch in voter support from one end of the political spectrum to the other in the 2018 general elections were both associated with the grievances triggered by the economic and leadership crisis of the mid-2010s. These grievances signal an erosion in the support for the social contract in place since the 1990s and the need to renew it.
Heterogeneous Agglomeration Economies in the Developing Countries: The Roles of Firm Characteristics, Sector Tradability, and Urban Mobility
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-07) Burger, Martijn; Ianchovichina, Elena; Akbar, Prottoy Aman
Using geo-coded, firm-level data on more than 51,000 establishments in 649 metropolitan areas in 98 developing economies, from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys and a new global database on city-level mobility and congestion, this paper estimates the “pure” firm productivity gains of urban density, net of negative externalities associated with limited mobility, crime, and pollution. The results suggest that the average size of agglomeration economies in the developing world is comparable to the one observed in advanced countries, but the magnitude of the benefits of density on firm productivity substantially varies across firms. Returns to urban density are higher for firms operating in the tradables sector, exporters, foreign-owned firms, larger firms, and more experienced firms. Agglomeration economies are lost through both limited uncongested mobility and congestion, but the latter has a stronger negative effect on agglomeration economies and reduces relatively more the agglomeration benefits of firms in the non-tradables sector than those producing tradables.
Trade Networks in Latin America: Spatial Inefficiencies and Optimal Expansions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11) Gorton, Nicole; Ianchovichina, Elena
How do trade connectivity issues affect the efficient spatial distribution of economic activity within and across countries in Latin America This paper uses a spatial general equilibrium framework to construct optimal transport networks and optimal expansions to existing networks in most Latin American countries, as well as within MERCOSUR and the Andean Community. The paper assesses the average annual welfare losses due to inefficient domestic road networks in Latin America at 1.7 percent, ranging from 2.5 percent in Brazil to 0.2 percent in El Salvador. Spatial misallocation of transnational road networks is associated with annual welfare losses of 1.8 percent in MERCOSUR and 1.6 percent in the Andean Community. Optimal investments in improvements and expansions of existing networks can correct these inefficiencies and reduce spatial inequality within countries. These investments correlate relatively well with World Bank road projects because both the model and the World Bank prioritize investments in high population areas. Transnational road improvements benefit the most the least developed country in each trade bloc. The results are robust to changes in data sources and model assumptions.
Happy but Unequal: Differences in Subjective Well-Being across Individuals and Space in Colombia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-02) Burger, Martijn; Hendriks, Martijn; Ianchovichina, Elena
Despite being on average a relatively happy country, Colombia has a high level of inequality in subjective well-being. Using Gallup World Poll data for the period from 2010 to 2018, this paper tests the direction and strength of association of a range of objective and subjective factors with subjective well-being and explains differences in subjective well-being across individuals and space. The perceived welfare of the average Colombian is mainly influenced by conditions and expectations related to economic opportunities and education. However, quantile regressions, reveal substantial differences in the domains that matter to those at the bottom and top of the experienced welfare distribution. Standard-of-living improvements, housing affordability, and civic engagement matter more to the most fortunate top 20 percent, while having education, a job, sufficient income, economic security, and digital connectivity are much more strongly associated with the well-being of the bottom 20 percent. The life domains that matter more to the unhappiest respondents also explain the majority of the spatial differences in perceived welfare between residents in urban and rural areas as well as core and peripheral regions. Policy actions aimed at closing the gaps in these areas have the potential to increase well-being and reduce inequality in Colombia.
Taking Another Look at Policy Research on China's Accession to the World Trade Organization
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-07) Ianchovichina, Elena; Martin, Will
Recent work on China's accession to the World Trade Organizations pays little attention to the wave of reforms in China in the 1980s and 1990s. These reforms created the preconditions for accession and strongly influenced its outcomes. The preeminence of processing trade at the time of accession sharply reduced the impact of accession-related tariff reductions on exports and set the stage for China's increases in domestic value added and reduction in China's involvement in global production sharing since that time. The assessment in this paper, based on export data and simulation results on the ex ante accession-related effects on export volumes in the literature, finds that the accession must have increased China's real export growth by at most 6 percentage points between 1997 and 2005. This effect is substantial, but not as large as suggested by the difference between the pre- and post-accession export growth rates in the four years before and after accession. This is because the influence of cyclical fluctuations related to the Asian financial crisis and the U.S. dot-com crash dampened export growth in the period before accession in 2001 and accelerated it afterward.
Subjective Well-Being and Peaceful Uprisings
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01) Witte, Caroline T.; Burger, Martijn J.; Ianchovichina, Elena
This study analyzes whether subjective well-being measures can explain variation in peaceful uprisings, in addition to the objective measures typically used in analyses of this type of events. Using data on uprisings and subjective well-being for 118 countries from 2007 to 2014 -- a period during which nonviolent conflict became increasingly prevalent -- the study finds evidence of a positive effect of life dissatisfaction on the incidence of peaceful uprising, but not its violent counterpart. This effect does not depend on the type of political regime, nor the stage of development, and, to a large extent, it reflects changes in perceived satisfaction with living standards and the ability to have a purposeful and meaningful life.