Person:
Coulibaly, Souleymane
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Macroeconomic and structural policies,
Growth diagnostics,
Fiscal policy
Degrees
Departments
Central Africa Unit, Africa Region, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Souleymane Coulibaly, from Cote d'Ivoire, holds a double Ph.D. degree in International Trade and Economic Geography from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne (France) and the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). His publications and ongoing research deal with the impact of geography on firms’ location, trade flows and regional integration. He was a co-author of 2009 World Development Report "Reshaping Economic Geography", contributed to the 2005 Global Economic Prospect report on regionalism, and recently published the book “Eurasian Cities: New Realities along the Silk Road” in the ECA regional studies series. He is the Program Leader and Lead Economist for Central Africa. He joined the World Bank Africa Region in January 2014 from the Operation and Policy and Quality Unit (OPCS) where he was covering Development Policy Lending and Guarantee policies and operations, and represented the unit in the Non-Concessional Borrowing Policy committee. Before OPCS, he was in the Eastern and Central Asia (ECA) region working simultaneously as trade economist and country economist of some former Soviet countries (Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), as well as ECA regional trade coordinator. Before joining the World Bank as a Young Professional in September 2006, he used to be lecturer at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Statistiques et d’Economie Appliquée (ENSEA) of Abidjan, teaching assistant at the University of Lausanne, and economist at the Economic and International Relations department of NESTLE in Vevey, Switzerland.
Publication Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
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Publication
Diversified Urbanization: The Case of Côte d'Ivoire
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-08-29)Côte d’Ivoire seeks a development strategy to reach middle-income status—a challenge that would require annual growth rates averaging 10 percent over the next 13 years. Global experience of both developed and emerging economies shows that GDP per capita rises with increased urbanization. However, Côte d’Ivoire’s economy is underperforming relative to its level of urbanization. The country’s urbanization has been negatively correlated with income per capita since the late 1970s, and poverty has been increasing. Rather than consider development of cities individually, successful urbanization plans in Côte d’Ivoire should consider the country’s cities as a portfolio of assets, each differentiated by characteristics that include size, location, and density of settlements. The authors of Diversified Urbanization: The Case of Côte d’Ivoire identify three types of cities on the basis of their contribution to growth and job creation: Global Connectors, Regional Connectors along major corridors for regional transport and trade, and Domestic Connectors of localization economies for agribusiness. Stakeholders from the national government, local governments, and the private sector have a shared vision for urbanization in the country—cities that are planned, structured, competitive, attractive, inclusive, and organized around development poles. To achieve this vision and the goal of middle-income status, Ivorian policy makers need to act urgently to support diversified urbanization across all city types. This book identifies important constraints and opportunities along four dimensions: planning, connecting, greening, and financing cities. -
Publication
Revisiting the Trade Impact of the African Growth and Opportunity Act: A Synthetic Control Approach
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08)This study examines the impact of the African Growth and Opportunity Act using the synthetic control method, a quasi-experimental approach. The novelty in the approach is that it addresses problems of estimation that are prevalent in nonexperimental methods used to analyze the impact of preferential trade agreements. The findings show that most of the eligible countries registered gains in exports due to the African Growth and Opportunity Act. However, the results are varied, and the gains were largely unsteady. Much of the gains are due to exports of petroleum and other minerals, while there are few countries that were able to expand into manufacturing and other industrial goods. The positive trade impacts were largely associated with improvements in information and communications technology infrastructure, integrity in the institutions of legal and property rights, ease of labor market regulations, and sound macroeconomic environment, including stable exchange rates and low inflation. Undue exposure to a single market, like the United States, or few commodities may have also restricted the gains from trade.