Person: Muzzini, Elisa
Global Practice Social, Urban, Rural & Resilience
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city competitiveness and urban regeneration; municipal infrastructure and service delivery
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Global Practice Social, Urban, Rural & Resilience
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Elisa Muzzini is a Senior Economist with experience working on a wide range of urban development issues in both low and middle income countries. Her primary areas of focus are urban infrastructure and municipal service delivery, city competitiveness, urban regeneration and sustainable tourism development. She is currently in the Latin America and Caribbean region, where she manages urban development operations and analytical work in Haiti and Argentina. In the South Asia region, she managed operations, technical assistance and analytical work in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. Early in her career, Elisa worked for private economic consulting firms on infrastructure regulation and competition policy. She received a graduate degree in Economics with a concentration in public financial policy from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics from Bocconi University in Italy.
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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
Publication Leveraging the Potential of Argentine Cities: A Framework for Policy Action(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-10-18) Muzzini, Elisa; Eraso Puig, Beatriz; Anapolsky, Sebastian; Lonnberg, Tara; Mora, VivianaArgentina’s path to economic prosperity is through efficient, sustainable and economically thriving cities. Not only are cities a spatial concentration of people, but also they generate agglomeration economies by concentrating ideas, talent, and knowledge. Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America, with 90 percent of Argentine people currently living in cities. Argentina’s cities are geographically and economically diverse, and its largest urban area – Metropolitan Buenos Aires – is one of Latin America’s urban giants. Argentine cities need to address three main challenges to leverage their economic potential. Argentina’s current patterns of urban development are characterized by (a) high primacy and unbalanced regional development, (b) limited global economic footprint of urban economies, with employment concentrated in nontradable and resource intensive sectors, and (c) unplanned low-density urban expansion. Argentine cities thus face the challenges of moving toward a more balanced regional development, transitioning from local to global cities, and from urban sprawl to articulated densities to take full advantage of the benefits of agglomeration economies. To address these challenges, Argentina needs the leadership of the federal government; the coordinating power of provinces; and the capacity of empowered, financially sound municipalities. Argentine cities also need system-wide policy reforms in areas such as territorial planning, municipal finance, housing, urban transport, and local economic development. Leveraging the Potential of Argentine Cities: A Framework for Policy Action aims to deepen our empirical understanding of the interplay between urbanization and agglomeration economies in Argentina by asking the following: (a) What are the main trends and spatial patterns of Argentina’s urbanization that underlie agglomeration economies?, (b) Are urban policies leveraging or undermining the benefits of agglomeration economies?, and (c) Are Argentine cities fully reaping the benefits of agglomeration economies to deliver improvements in prosperity and livability? By addressing such questions and exploring their implications for action, this study provides a conceptual framework, empirical data, and strategic directions for leveraging the potential of Argentine cities.Publication Bangladesh : The Path to Middle-Income Status from an Urban Perspective(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-03-22) Aparicio, Gabriela; Muzzini, ElisaBangladesh seeks to attain middle-income status by 2021, the 50th anniversary of its independence. To accelerate growth enough to do so, it will need to undergo a structural transformation that will change the geography of economic production and urbanization. Critical to its transformation will be the creation of a globally competitive urban space, defined here as a space that has the capacity to innovate, is well connected internally and to external markets, and is livable (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD 2006; World Bank 2010). This study identifies what is unique about Bangladesh s process of urbanization and examines the implications for economic growth. Through the lens of Bangladesh s most successful industry, the garment sector, it describes the drivers of and constraints to urban competitiveness. Based on the findings, it provides policy directions to strengthen the competitiveness of Bangladesh s urban space in ways that will allow Bangladesh to reach middle-income status by 2021.Publication Urban Growth and Spatial Transition in Nepal : An Initial Assessment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-03-07) Aparicio, Gabriela; Muzzini, ElisaNepal is undergoing two momentous transformations-from a rural to an urbanizing economy and from a unitary to a federal state. This book aims at understanding the first of these two transitions: Nepal's journey toward becoming a predominantly urban economy. The study carries out an initial assessment of Nepal's transition from a predominantly rural to an urbanizing economy. This assessment aims at strengthening our understanding of the demographic and economic dimensions of the transition, and exploring the links between urbanization and economic growth in the context of Nepal. This book has five chapters. Chapter one presents an overview of the urban and economic transition in Nepal. Chapter two discusses the spatial patterns of Nepal's rapid urbanization and internal migration-a driving force of urban change from both a demographic and an economic perspective. Chapter three presents an initial assessment of the challenges facing Nepal's cities in urban planning and the delivery of infrastructure and services. And it discusses the spatial distribution of public expenditure for local infrastructure based on the results of a public expenditure survey carried out as part of the study. Chapter four presents a scoping assessment of the growth drivers of Nepal's urban economies and the main constraints to turning these comparative advantages into competitive advantages. And chapter five draws the main conclusions and proposes strategic directions and actions to accelerate urban-based economic growth and foster sustainable urban development.Publication Decentralizing Infrastructure Services : Lessons from the East Asia Experience(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-06) Muzzini, ElisaThis document specifies, most east asian countries have increasingly shifted responsibilities for infrastructure services to subnational tiers of governments. Infrastructure service provision involves a broad set of functions, including setting investment priorities, building and operating infrastructure facilities, and financing capital and operation and maintenance requirements. The extent to which each of these functions is transferred to subnational agencies defines a country's decentralization approach for infrastructure services. Subnational governments also have significant leeway in deciding how to mobilize funds for infrastructure projects. The infrastructure projects focused in three countries China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In China, the central government plays a prominent role in setting investment priorities across infrastructure sectors. Indonesia and the Philippines have adopted a big bang approach to infrastructure decentralization. The report concludes, despite the heterogeneous environments in which decentralization has been implemented in the three countries, important lessons can be learned by comparing how each has fared in promoting regional coordination and building accountability for infrastructure services in a decentralized environment.Publication Consumer Participation in Infrastructure Regulation : Evidence from the East Asia and Pacific Region(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2005) Muzzini, ElisaConsumer Participation in Infrastructure Regulation draws on results of a survey questionnaire conducted among 45 infrastructure regulators in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region. It finds that EAP regulators have successfully begun to involve consumers in the regulatory process: consumer representation is a well-established practice in the region; and regulators draw on standard mechanisms to inform consumers, resolve consumer complaints, and solicit consumer input. However, regulators must take further actions to firmly move up the "ladder of consumer engagement," from merely providing information to actively consulting with consumers. In particular, consumer participation would benefit from more open disclosure policies, more effective strategies to reach out to the poor, and, tighter regulatory intervention to hold service providers accountable for resolving consumer complaints.