Dabalen, Andrew

Person:
Dabalen, Andrew

Chief Economist, Africa, World Bank

Fields of Specialization

Poverty, Inequality, Economics of education, Development economics, Labor economics

Departments

Chief Economist, Africa, World Bank

Last updated: January 10, 2025

Biography

Andrew Dabalen is the World Bank’s Africa Region Chief Economist since July 1, 2022. The Chief Economist is responsible for providing guidance on strategic priorities and the technical quality of economic analysis in the region, as well as for developing major regional economic studies, among other roles. He has held various positions including Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region, Lead Economist and Practice Manager for Poverty and Equity in Africa and most recently, Practice Manager for Poverty and Equity in the South Asia Region. His research and scholarly publications focused on poverty and social impact analysis, inequality of opportunity, program evaluation, risk and vulnerability, labor markets, and conflict and welfare outcomes. He has co-authored regional reports on equality of opportunity for children in Africa, vulnerability and resilience in the Sahel, and poverty in a rising Africa. He holds a master’s degree in International Development from University of California - Davis, and a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from University of California - Berkeley.

Full item page

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 38

Regenerative Agriculture in Practice: A Review
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-24) Dabalen, Andrew; Goyal, Aparajita; Song, Ruozi
Regenerative agriculture, a farming approach that focuses on soil health and ecosystems, has recently received considerable attention, particularly as an essential element of sustainable agriculture in the context of climate change. This paper reviews quantitative evidence of regenerative agriculture’s impact on productivity, resilience, and climate change mitigation—through carbon sequestration in soil. The effectiveness of regenerative agriculture depends on local climate conditions and existing practices. In addition, large-scale adoption of regenerative agriculture faces multiple challenges, such as the trade-off between short-term loss and long-term gains, smallholder farmer profitability, and other common market failures in agriculture. These challenges are especially salient in African agriculture. However, payments for ecosystem services, though yet to be carefully designed, can potentially incentivize farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture and create an additional source of income. Finally, further empirical evidence on the causal impacts of regenerative agriculture is needed to support policy design and recommendations. The paper concludes with open questions on regenerative agriculture for future study.
The Changing Landscape of Africa’s Growth
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-10) Calderon, Cesar; Dabalen, Andrew; Qu, Ayan
This paper examines the main features of real growth per capita of Sub-Saharan Africa over the past six decades, before uncovering the sources of growth—including those of growth miracles. Three distinct growth phases before the recent “lost decade” are observed. The swinging pattern of income per capita shows that the region has not converged with most benchmarks and is not resilient to shocks, although resilience has improved since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Furthermore, growth across countries in the region is heterogeneous and falls into three broad groups. Analysis of the sources of growth suggests that the region underperforms on duration during episodes of expansions/recessions, and the contribution of total factor productivity remains small, although it has improved over the past two decades. A few countries in the region, for example, Botswana, Ethiopia, and Mauritius, have sustained growth for decades, on par with the world’s best performance. These exceptional “growth miracles” are distinguished by a common set of factors that explain how such miracles start and are sustained: leadership, economic diversification, market expansion, and investment for the future.
Local Economic Shocks and Human Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Rwandan Coffee Mills
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-05) Dabalen, Andrew; TeiMensah, Justice; Nsabimana, Aimable
This paper examines the medium-term effects of policy- driven income shocks on human capital accumulation in low-income environments. Using administrative data on test scores of the universe of primary school students in Rwanda and the staggered rollout of coffee mills in the country, it shows a positive spillover effect of the coffee mills on students’ performance. Early life exposure to coffee mills is associated with a 0.09 standard deviation (4 percent) increase in student test scores. Improvements in household welfare, child health, and school attendance are likely operative channels of impact.
Agricultural Windfalls and Electrification
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-08) Dabalen, Andrew; Mensah, Justice Tei; Nsabimana, Aimable; Nshunguyinka, Alexandre
This paper studies how windfalls from agriculture influence demand for electrification in a developing country. Leveraging two decades of administrative data on the universe of electricity grid customers in Rwanda, and plausibly exogenous variations in international coffee prices, we document two key findings: (I) Historical coffee price booms explain about 4% of the increase in electrification rates in Rwanda. (II) Coffee price shocks are also associated with an increase in electricity consumption by connected households. Relaxing liquidity constraints associated with upfront payment of connection fees and increased demand for electrical appliances are likely mechanisms.
Agriculture Production Potential of Groundwater Irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-29) Srivastava, Bhavya; Edochie, Ifeanyi N.; Goyal, Aparajita; Dabalen, Andrew
Sub-Saharan Africa’s low agricultural productivity exacerbates rural poverty. An important investment, the sustainable use of groundwater for irrigation, has the potential to increase agricultural productivity, but the region has been much slower to adopt this irrigation method compared to other regions, despite abundant reserves. This study uses a simulation-driven approach to examine the benefits of sustainably utilizing groundwater for irrigation. By mapping data from 291,798 global agro-ecological zones to 8,099 groundwater grids, the study models the production gains from groundwater irrigation for rain-fed croplands. Simulation results indicate that groundwater access could increase output by 27.97 to 129.42 percent, contingent on crop and model conditions. This research facilitates the assessment of the transformative potential of groundwater irrigation and identifies areas in Sub-Saharan Africa where investments can yield significant returns without depleting the groundwater table.
Data for Policy Initiative
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) Himelein, Kristen; Dabalen, Andrew; Rodriguez Castelan, Carlos
The Data for Policy (D4P) initiative (D4P) is a new World Bank engagement to improve National Statistical Systems (NSS) by enhancing the availability, timeliness, quality, and relevance of key data for evidence-based decision making. Working at national and regional levels, the D4P ‘package’ includes production of a core set of economic, social, and sustainability statistics essential for monitoring and evaluating public policies and programs. Good quality, timely, and relevant statistics are crucial to monitor social and human development outcomes. They can also help identify what policies work, and which do not, in promoting inclusive growth and eradicating poverty. Having reliable, timely data is particularly important for poor countries to allow them to allocate limited resources most efficiently. At the same time, the World Bank’s support for countries’ statistical capacity has become even more critical as the world strives to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Mining in Africa: Are Local Communities Better Off?
(Washington, DC: World Bank and Agence Francaise de developpement, 2017-02-21) Chuhan-Pole, Punam; Dabalen, Andrew L.; Land, Bryan Christopher; Lewin, Michael; Sanoh, Aly; Smith, Gregory; Tolonen, Anja
This study focuses on the local and regional impact of large-scale gold mining in Africa in the context of a mineral boom in the region since 2000. It contributes to filling a gap in the literature on the welfare effects of mineral resources, which, until now, has concentrated more on the national or macroeconomic impacts. Economists have long been intrigued by the paradox that a rich endowment of natural resources may retard economic performance, particularly in the case of mineral-exporting developing countries. Studies of this phenomenon, known as the “resource curse,” examine the economy-wide consequences of mineral exports. Africa’s resource boom has lifted growth, but has been less successful in improving people’s welfare. Yet much of the focus in academic and policy circles has been on appropriate management of the macro-fiscal and governance risks that have historically undermined development outcomes. This study focuses instead on the fortune of local communities where resources are located. It aims to better inform public policy and corporate behavior on the welfare of communities in Africa in which the extraction of resources takes place.
Poverty in a Rising Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-03) Beegle, Kathleen; Christiaensen, Luc; Dabalen, Andrew; Gaddis, Isis
Perceptions of Africa have changed dramatically. Viewed as a continent of wars, famines and entrenched poverty in the late 1990s, there is now a focus on “Africa rising” and an “African 21st century.” Two decades of unprecedented economic growth in Africa should have brought substantial improvements in well-being. Whether or not they did, remains unclear given the poor quality of the data, the nature of the growth process (especially the role of natural resources), conflicts that affect part of the region, and high population growth. Poverty in a Rising Africa documents the data challenges and systematically reviews the evidence on poverty from monetary and nonmonetary perspectives, as well as a focus on dimensions of inequality. Chapter 1 maps out the availability and quality of the data needed to track monetary poverty, reflects on the governance and political processes that underpin the current situation with respect to data production, and describes some approaches to addressing the data gaps. Chapter 2 evaluates the robustness of the estimates of poverty in Africa. It concludes that poverty reduction in Africa may be slightly greater than traditional estimates suggest, although even the most optimistic estimates of poverty reduction imply that more people lived in poverty in 2012 than in 1990. A broad-stroke profile of poverty and trends in poverty in the region is presented. Chapter 3 broadens the view of poverty by considering nonmonetary dimensions of well-being, such as education, health, and freedom, using Sen's (1985) capabilities and functioning approach. While progress has been made in a number of these areas, levels remain stubbornly low. Chapter 4 reviews the evidence on inequality in Africa. It looks not only at patterns of monetary inequality in Africa but also other dimensions, including inequality of opportunity, intergenerational mobility in occupation and education, and extreme wealth in Africa.
The Short-Run Impact of Import Bans on Poverty: The Case of Nigeria (2008–2012)
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2018-06) Dabalen, Andrew
The Nigerian government uses food import prohibition as part of policies that seeks to protect existing domestic producers and reduce the country's dependence on imports. This paper argues that such policies have negative effects on net consumers of such products due to higher prices. With 70 percent of poor households' budget spent on food, and about 13 percent of the total budget devoted to products subject to import bans, poor households are vulnerable to such trade policies. Prices of some import prohibited food products are found to be higher than what they would be in the absence of such bans. The elimination of import bans is estimated to reduce national poverty rates by as much as 2.6 percentage points.
Vulnerability to Stunting in the West African Sahel
(Elsevier, 2019-02) Alfani, Federica; Dabalen, Andrew; Fisker, Peter; Molini, Vasco
This paper presents a simple simulation framework for understanding and analyzing vulnerability to stunting. We utilize Demographic and Health Surveys merged with satellite data on climatic shocks. Children aged 0–5 years are grouped into three categories: consistently stunted, vulnerable, and non-vulnerable. The first group constitutes those who are stunted and will also be stunted in any hypothetical period. Non-vulnerable are those whose likelihood to be stunted is zero. The vulnerable face a probability between 0 and 1 of being stunted. The probability is calculated as the share of years in which the child would be stunted, given the village level distribution of weather shocks over the period 2000–2013. We provide estimates of vulnerability to stunting in Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Mali, Northern Nigeria, and Senegal by aggregating over villages, districts and countries.