Person:
Muzzini, Elisa

Global Practice Social, Urban, Rural & Resilience
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Fields of Specialization
city competitiveness and urban regeneration; municipal infrastructure and service delivery
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ORCID
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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.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • 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, Viviana
    Argentina’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.