Person:
Revenga, Ana
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty and inequality,
Aid Effectiveness,
Welfare economics,
Social protection,
Gender,
Labor economics
Degrees
External Links
Departments
Poverty and Equity Global Practice, The World Bank Group
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Ana Revenga was recently appointed as Senior Director, Povetry and Equity Global Practice. She is currently Acting Vice-President for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network at the World Bank, and also Director of Human Development in the Europe and Central Asia Region. Previously, she was Co-Director of the 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development. Between 2008 and 2011, she was Director of the Poverty Reduction and Equity Group at the World Bank and the principal spokeperson for the Bank on these issues. In her 20-year career at the World Bank, she has worked in both technical and management positions in the East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America regions. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked in the Central Bank of Spain and taught labor and international economics at the Centro de Estudios Monetarios and Financieros. She has published extensively on education and employment, equity, food security, social protection, poverty, and trade issues, and has worked across a broad spectrum of low, middle and high income countries in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. She was one of the authors of the 1995 World Development Report (Workers in an Integrating World) and contributed to the 2006 World Development Report (Equity and Development). She has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 10
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Publication
Poverty and Ethnicity : A Cross-Country Study of ROMA Poverty in Central Europe
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002-11)ROMA are the main poverty risk groups in many of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. However, information on their living conditions, and the characteristics of their poverty is scarce, fragmented, and often anecdotal. This paper analyzes data from a new cross-country household survey, conducted by the Center for Comparative Research, at Yale University. The survey is the first of its kind which addresses the ethnic dimension of poverty across countries, covering Roma in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. The paper finds that welfare among Roma households is significantly lower than that of non-Roma, in terms of both material deprivation (consumption and income), and other measures of deprivation, including housing status, education levels, and employment opportunities. Multivariate analysis confirm that, controlling for other household characteristics, there is a strong negative association between Roma ethnicity, and welfare. A large part of this association appears to be due to differences in endowments, and opportunities, but there is also an important component that is "structural". This component may reflect the influence of past, and present discrimination, exclusion, and cultural factors which may affect access to public services, e.g., through language barriers. -
Publication
Avoiding the Eye of the Storm : How to Deal Effectively with Job Crises
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-11)Although economic crises are difficult to predict, their recurrence is a salient feature of emerging market economies. Nevertheless, many developing countries continue to lack an effective policy infrastructure that can mitigate the impacts of economic downturns on employment opportunities without affecting long-term growth prospects. This was painfully highlighted by the hasty reactions implemented by many countries in response to the global downturn of 2008-09, and by the ad hoc and reactive nature of many of the policies implemented. The weak ability of governments to systematically foresee, monitor, and offset adverse labor market impacts of economic downturn is of particular concern in developing countries where poverty incidence is high and labor is typically the only asset for the majority of the population. The main objectives of this note are: 1) to highlight the need for policies that limit earnings volatility; 2) to guide policy makers through the challenges inherent in crafting effective and comprehensive policy packages. -
Publication
Editor's Note
(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2013-02)The lives of girls and women in developing countries have improved dramatically over the past quarter of a century. Female life expectancy at birth has increased dramatically to reach 71 years globally in 2007. Literacy rates have risen and in a third of developing countries there are more girls in secondary school than boys. Most strikingly, in more than half the developing countries more women attend university than men. Women have entered the labor force in massive numbers and now account for 40% of the global work force. Moreover, change has come much more quickly than it did historically in the rich countries. -
Publication
A Global Count of the Extreme Poor in 2012: Data Issues, Methodology and Initial Results
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10)The 2014 release of a new set of purchasing power parity conversion factors (PPPs) for 2011 has prompted a revision of the international poverty line. In order to preserve the integrity of the goalposts for international targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the World Bank’s twin goals, the new poverty line was chosen so as to preserve the definition and real purchasing power of the earlier $1.25 line (in 2005 PPPs) in poor countries. Using the new 2011 PPPs, the new line equals $1.90 per person per day. The higher value of the line in US dollars reflects the fact that the new PPPs yield a relatively lower purchasing power of that currency vis-à-vis those of most poor countries. Because the line was designed to preserve real purchasing power in poor countries, the revisions lead to relatively small changes in global poverty incidence: from 14.5 percent in the old method to 14.1 percent in the new method for 2011. In 2012, the new reference year for the global count, we find 12.7 percent of the world’s population, or 897 million people, are living in extreme poverty. There are changes in the regional composition of poverty, but they are also relatively small. This paper documents the detailed methodological decisions taken in the process of updating both the poverty line and the consumption and income distributions at the country level, including issues of inter-temporal and spatial price adjustments. It also describes various caveats, limitations, perils and pitfalls of the approach taken. -
Publication
Grow, Invest, Insure: A Game Plan to End Extreme Poverty by 2030
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-11)As global extreme poverty has fallen -- by one measure, from close to 2 billion people in 1990 to about 700 million today -- the world has learned about antipoverty strategies that work. These experiences should inform the final push to end extreme poverty. In the 1960s and 1970s, when close to half of the world was living in extreme poverty, the approach that worked best consisted of two sets of complementary measures: encouraging broad-based growth that is labor using, and investing in education, health, and family planning. When extreme poverty rates came down—first in East Asia and then in other parts of the developing world—it became clear that the two-point strategy to make economies grow and enable people to invest in human capital needed a social assistance supplement to help people with disadvantages so severe that they could not benefit from economic opportunities and better social services. This two-and-a-half-point strategy has been working well over the past quarter century, and the end of extreme poverty is in sight. But more people are now at risk of slipping back into poverty because of economic, natural, and health-related hazards. To end extreme poverty by 2030, the approach now needs three complementary components: economic growth, investments in people, and measures to insure against setbacks to families, nations, and regions due to disabilities, recessions, disasters, and disease. In countries that have reduced poverty a lot and those that could do a lot better, a winning game plan for putting a quick end to extreme poverty should be based on a three-point strategy: grow, invest, and insure. -
Publication
Coping with Crises : Policies to Protect Employment and Earnings
(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2012-02-01)The continuing failure of many countries to adequately mitigate the adverse labor market impacts of economic downturns is of concern, since labor market volatility can exacerbate poverty and stunt growth. This article aims to identify potentially effective policies responses to crises by navigating the potential tradeoffs between offsetting adverse short-term impacts of economic downturns on the quantity and quality of jobs, and preserving incentives for economic recovery. The authors propose a taxonomy that categorizes interventions depending on whether they mitigate the negative short-term impact of crises or whether they stimulate recovery. The taxonomy helps policymakers to identify “win–win” policies that avoid potential tradeoffs between these objectives by simultaneously serving both. Common elements of effective interventions are feasibility, flexibility (for example the capacity for scaling up and down), and incentive compatibility—and there is no substitute for being prepared. Having sound safety nets in place before a crisis is superior to haphazardly implementing responses after a crisis hits. -
Publication
Is It Really Possible for Countries to Simultaneously Grow and Reduce Poverty and Inequality? Going Beyond Global Narratives
(Taylor and Francis, 2020-06)Global narratives underscore that economic growth can often coincide with reductions in poverty and inequality. However, the experiences of several countries over recent decades confirm that inequality can widen or narrow in response to policy choices and independent of economic growth. This paper analyses five country cases, Brazil, Cambodia, Mali, Peru and Tanzania. These countries are the most successful in reducing inequality and poverty while growing robustly for at least a decade since the early 2000 s. The paper assesses how good macroeconomic management, sectoral reform, the strengthening of safety nets, responses to external shocks, and initial conditions all chip away at inequality and support broad growth. Sustained and robust economic growth with strong poverty and inequality reductions are possible across very different contexts and policy choices. The comparative analysis also identifies common building blocks toward success and warns that hard-earned achievements can be easily overturned. -
Publication
Coping with Crises : Why and How to Protect Employment and Earnings
( 2009-10-01)Events of the past two years are a reminder that crises are a recurring phenomenon with deep and often protracted impacts on labor markets. This paper examines the challenges inherent in crafting policy responses, with particular attention to developing countries. It focuses on the potential tradeoffs between offsetting adverse short-term impacts and preserving incentives for economic recovery and future growth, and between protecting the most vulnerable and compensating those most immediately impacted. It also highlights how policymakers room for maneuver is constrained in crisis times by deteriorating fiscal space, limited institutional capacity, and mounting political pressures. Based on empirical evidence from previous crises, the paper asserts that taking a myopic and reactive approach may be costly and counterproductive. Instead, it advocates a more comprehensive approach, designed to build institutions - such as automatic stabilizers and safety nets - that can deliver a coordinated and coherent policy package. This approach will make crises catalysts for institutional changes and long-run growth. -
Publication
Rising Food Prices
(World Bank, 2008-10-01)A review of the best policy interventions to respond to food price increases in local markets. -
Publication
The Economics of Effective AIDS Treatment : Evaluating Policy Options for Thailand
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006)The purpose of this report is to advise the Thai government and Thai society at large about the full range of benefits, costs, and consequences that are likely to result from the decision to expand public provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART) through National Access to Antiretroviral Program for People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAPHA) and to assist with the design of implementation policies that will achieve maximum treatment benefits, while promoting prevention of HIV/AIDS and maintaining financial sustainability within Thailand. The study has several significant findings: NAPHA with first-line regimen only is the most cost-effective policy option of those studied; NAPHA with second-line therapy is still affordable and yields large benefits in terms of life-years saved; policy options to enhance adherence and to recruit patients earlier are a good public investment; public financing will help ensure equitable access; public financing can strengthen positive spillovers and can limit negative spillovers of ART; if the success of ART rollout makes people or the government complacent about prevention, future costs could rise substantially; and future government expenditures on ART, and the lives it will save are highly sensitive to negotiated agreements on the intellectual property rights for pharmaceuticals. In its current form, Thailand's NAPHA program is affordable. Under the model's assumptions, it is also cost-effective relative to the baseline scenario. Furthermore, although the two enhanced policies we suggest early recruitment through expanded voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) and improved adherence through Person living with HIV/AIDS (PHA) groups are less cost-effective, they are still a good bargain, particularly if both are enacted.