Ravallion, Martin

Person:
Ravallion, Martin

Development Research Group, World Bank

Author Name Variants

Ravaillon, Martin, Ravallion, M., Ravillion, Martin

Fields of Specialization

Welfare Economics; Public Economics; Economics of Poverty; Economics of Inequality

External Links

Let's talk Development
Remembering Martin Ravallion

Departments

Development Research Group, World Bank

Last updated:January 13, 2026

Biography

Martin Ravallion was an Australian economist. He was the inaugural Edmond D. Villani Professor of Economics at Georgetown University, and had previously been director of the research department at the World Bank. He held a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics. He died on December 24, 2022.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/38571

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Publication Search Results

Now showing1 - 10 of 147

Migrants as Social Protection?: Simulations of a Market for Work Permits
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-08) Do, Quy-Toan; Lokshin, Michael M.; Ravallion, Martin
Workers have the right to take up any job offer in their country of citizenship but not to rent out that right. This paper shows that relaxing this restriction using a two-sided competitive market in work permits can provide a basic income guarantee for workers in migration-destination countries, financed by selling temporary work permits to migrant workers. Regulating the market by imposing a tax on work permits narrows the set of beneficiaries, the income of which can further be complemented with the revenues from such tax. Substantial gains in the destination countries’ gross domestic product can be expected, alongside the first-order gains to migrant workers who would not otherwise have access to the labor markets in destination countries. The paper provides a quantitative illustration by simulating a fictitious market for work permits between Mexico and the United States.
Unpacking Household Engel Curves
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-12-18) De Vreyer, Philippe; Lambert, Sylvie; Ravaillon, Martin
Acknowledging that decision making does not happen at the household but at the individual level, can household Engel curves be safely estimated based solely on household-level data? Answering this question requires considering the intra-household Engel curves (IECs) and assessing how estimates of such IECs relate to standard household Engel curves estimates. Aggregating the IECs to the household level reveals confounding factors in standard household Engel curves, including intra-household inequality. A unique data set for Senegal is used to estimate IECs. Large discrepancies are found between the standard estimates of Engel curves and the consistently aggregated IECs. The main source of the discrepancy is a household fixed effect on intra-household spending behavior, which is only partially offset by differences in intra-household inequality. Results suggest that income elasticity of food consumption might be overestimated by as much as 43 percent by the standard household Engel curve estimation.
The Social Protection Engel Curve
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-08-08) Lokshin, Michael; Ravallion, Martin; Torre, Iván
Why do richer countries spend a higher share of their income on social protection than poor countries A newly assembled dataset on social protection spending for 142 countries since 1995 allows an exploration of alternate hypotheses, treating the pandemic period separately, as it entailed a large expansion in social protection efforts. While the mean income share devoted to social protection rises with income, this is attributable to multiple confounders, including relative prices, weak governance in low-income countries, and access to information communication technologies. Controlling for these, social protection spending is similar between rich and poor countries. This was also true during the pandemic.
Is Social Protection a Luxury Good?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09) Lokshin, Michael; Ravallion, Martin; Torre, Iván
The claim that social protection is a luxury good—with a national income elasticity exceeding unity—has been influential. The paper tests the “luxury good hypothesis” using newly-assembled data on social protection spending across countries since 1995, treating the pandemic period separately, as it entailed a large expansion in social protection efforts. While the mean income share devoted to social protection rises with income, this is attributable to multiple confounders, including relative prices, weak governance in low-income countries and access to information-communication technologies. Controlling for these, social protection is not a luxury good. This was also true during the pandemic.
Would Mexican Migrants be Willing to Guarantee Americans a Basic Income?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06) Lokshin, Michael; Ravallion, Martin
The paper simulates a double-sided competitive market in temporary work permits between the U.S. and Mexico. Eligible working-age Americans would have the option of renting out their implicit work permits while Mexican workers have remunerative new opportunities. With plausible allowances for migration costs, the market can support a self-financed and self-targeted basic income for Americans and lower their poverty rate. With sufficiently high tax rates on work permits, the scheme can be managed to avoid a large increase in the count of total migrants compared to now. The likely change in the skill composition of migrants would raise U.S. GDP.
Scarred but Wiser: World War 2's COVID Legacy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11) Kolchin, Vladimir; Lokshin, Michael; Ravallion, Martin
The paper formalizes and tests the hypothesis that greater exposure to big shocks induces stronger societal responses for adaptation and protection from future big shocks. Support for this hypothesis is found in various strands of the literature and in new empirical tests using cross-country data on deaths due to COVID-19 and deaths during World War 2. Countries with higher death rates in the war saw lower death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tests are robust to a wide range of model specifications and alternative assumptions.
A Comparative Perspective on Poverty Reduction in Brazil, China, and India
(World Bank, 2011-07-02) Ravallion, Martin
Brazil, China, and India have seen falling poverty in their reform periods, but to varying degrees and for different reasons. History left China with favorable initial conditions for rapid poverty reduction through market-led economic growth; at the outset of the reform process there were many distortions to be removed and a relatively low inequality of access to the opportunities so created, though inequality has risen markedly since. By concentrating such opportunities in the hands of the better off, prior inequalities in various dimensions handicapped poverty reduction in both Brazil and India. Brazil's recent success in complementing market-oriented reforms with progressive social policies has helped it achieve a higher proportionate rate of poverty reduction than India, although Brazil has been less successful in terms of economic growth. In the wake of its steep rise in inequality, China might learn from Brazil's success with such policies. India needs to do more to assure that poor people are able to participate in both the country's growth process and its social policies; here there are lessons from both China and Brazil. All three countries have learned how important macroeconomic stability is to poverty reduction.
The Missing Market for Work Permits
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-09) Lokshin, Michael; Ravallion, Martin
Citizens have a right to accept any job offer in their country, but that right is not marketable or automatically extended to foreigners. Yet, some citizens have useful things to do if they could rent out their right-to-work, and there are foreigners who would value the new options for employment. Thus, there is a missing market. A solution is to allow people to rent out their right-to-work for a period of their choice. On the other side of the market, foreigners could purchase time-bound work permits. The market would no longer be missing. This paper formulates and studies this policy proposal.
Long-term Gains from Electrification in Rural India
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2017-06-01) van de Walle, Dominique; Ravallion, Martin; Mendiratta, Vibhuti; Koolwal, Gayatri
We know surprisingly little about the long-run impacts of household electrification. This paper studies the impacts on consumption in rural India over a 17-year period, allowing for both internal and external (village-level) effects. Under our identifying assumptions, electrification brought significant consumption gains for households who acquired electricity for their own use. We also find evidence of a dynamic effect of village connectivity for households without electricity themselves. This is suggestive of an external effect, which also comes with a shift in consumption spending suggestive of status concerns among those still without electricity. Labor earnings were an important channel of impact. This was mainly through extra work by men. There was no effect on average wage rates.
Growth, Urbanization, and Poverty Reduction in India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02) Datt, Gaurav; Ravallion, Martin; Murgai, Rinku
Longstanding development issues are revisited in the light of a newly-constructed data set of poverty measures for India spanning 60 years, including 20 years since reforms began in earnest in 1991. The study finds a downward trend in poverty measures since 1970, with an acceleration post-1991, despite rising inequality. Faster poverty decline came with higher growth and a more pro-poor pattern of growth. Post-1991 data suggest stronger inter-sectoral linkages: urban consumption growth brought gains to the rural as well as the urban poor, and the primary-secondary-tertiary composition of growth has ceased to matter, as all three sectors contributed to poverty reduction.