Tiwari, Sailesh

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Tiwari, Sailesh

Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank

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Tiwari, S.

Fields of Specialization

Applied microeconomics, Development economics, Labor economics, Poverty and Inequality

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Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank

Last updated:November 11, 2025

Biography

Sailesh Tiwari is a Lead Economist for the Poverty Global Practice in the East Asia and the Pacific Region of the World Bank. His work focuses broadly on identifying the drivers of inclusive growth and supporting the development and implementation of policies to foster shared prosperity. He has led the World Bank’s engagements on poverty and economic mobility related issues across South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Europe and Central Asia with thematic work spanning distributional analysis of fiscal policy, urbanization and spatial development, digital economy, and food and nutrition security. Sailesh holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University, M.Sc. in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economic and a BA in Economics from Connecticut College.

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Now showing1 - 10 of 25

The Distributional Impacts of Climatic Variability on Welfare in Thailand
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-10) Tiwari, Sailesh; Skoufias, Emmanuel; Kshirsagar, Varun
This paper uses cross-sectional surveys of households over 2007–21 from Thailand’s Socio-Economic Expenditure Survey to conduct one of the first investigations of the impacts of climatic variability on two key statistics characterizing the distribution of welfare in Thailand: the mean and the variance (or inequality). It shows that historically higher rainfall is positively associated with the mean level of welfare, as measured by household consumption expenditures per capita, and negatively associated with poverty and a variety of measures of inequality in the country. These results validate concerns about the impacts of increased climatic variability and more frequent and intense weather extremes associated with the process of climate change. More frequent and more intense shortages of rainfall will decrease welfare and increase inequality at the national level and in both urban and rural areas. There is considerable variation in the extent to which access to social assistance and credit programs in their current configuration mitigates the negative impacts of rainfall shortages on welfare and prevents increases in inequality. Investing in irrigation infrastructure and strengthening the insurance components of social protection and credit support programs, such as the Village Funds program, through increasing the identification, targeting, and coverage of those vulnerable to poverty from exposure to such shocks, provide promising options for mitigating the impacts of climatic variability on welfare, poverty, and overall inequality in Thailand.
Building Public Support for Reducing Fossil Fuel Subsidies: Evidence across 12 Middle-Income Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-29) Hoy, Christopher; Kim, Yeon Soo; Nguyen, Minh; Sosa, Mariano; Tiwari, Sailesh
This study examines which factors influence support for reducing fossil fuel subsidies and what types of information shift people’s views through surveying 37,000 respondents across 12 middle-income countries that provided over US$750 billion in explicit and implicit subsidies for fossil fuels in 2022. Respondents were randomly allocated to receive information about the relative cost of fossil fuel subsidies, how they are regressive, or worsen climate change and air pollution. They were then asked about their support for reforms with and without accompanying policies. These treatments, particularly about environmental damage, increased support for reforms in countries that primarily subsidize gasoline and among respondents who perceive themselves to be middle class. Around 30 percent of respondents supported reducing fossil fuel subsidies in isolation, but this share increased to over 95 percent if accompanying policies were implemented. These findings help inform governments about how to build public support for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.
How Redistributive Is Fiscal Policy in China? New Evidence on the Distributional Impacts of Taxes and Spending
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-04) Lugo, Maria Ana; Lustig, Nora; Montalva Talledo, Veronica Sonia; Tiwari, Sailesh; Wang, Yang
How redistributive are fiscal policies in China This paper applies the standard fiscal incidence analysis to data from the China Family Panel Study 2018 to study the effect of government taxes and spending on inequality in China. The analysis includes fiscal elements, such as personal income tax, contributions to social insurance, value-added tax, consumption tax, cash transfers, contributory pensions, and spending on education and health, and accounts for 63 percent of total revenues and 43 percent of total government spending. Consistent with previous studies, the paper finds that fiscal policy in China continues to redistribute quite effectively, achieving inequality reduction of about 10.3 Gini points, placing China around the median of upper-middle-income country peers on the level of redistribution achieved by fiscal policy. Not unlike several other countries where similar analysis has been done, most of the inequality reduction achieved by China is through education and health spending. Findings from the paper further suggest that while the fiscal system delivers more to those who need the most support, the heavy burden of user fees—relative to disposable income—may prevent some families from accessing needed health care services and imply high costs of raising children. In addition, there is room for the progressivity of the overall package to be enhanced. In particular, the fiscal system could make a greater dent in inequality by collecting more from those who could afford to pay more and leaving more money in the pockets of those who need it the most. This could be done by increasing the share of fiscal revenues collected through progressive taxes such as personal income tax and increasing the level of cash-based social benefits (such as residents’ pensions and transfers).
Are Ride-Hailing Services and Public Transport Complements or Substitutes?: Evidence from the Opening of Jakarta’s MRT System
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-12-20) Bosker, Maarten; Roberts, Mark; Tiwari, Sailesh; Wibisana, Putu Sanjiwacika; Wihardja, Maria Monica; Yanurzha, Ramda
Motorbike-based ride-hailing services are widespread in many of the most congested cities in the developing world. These services often predate the construction of modern public mass rapid transit systems. Ride-hailing services may complement such investments by providing important first and last mile connectivity. However, it has also been argued that they undermine the viability of mass rapid transit systems as people prefer to use ride-hailing services given their convenience and low prices. This paper applies an event study research design to proprietary, high-frequency data from one of Indonesia’s largest ride-hailing services, Gojek. The findings show that the opening of stations on Jakarta’s first mass rapid transit line led to large increases in ride-hailing activity in the immediate vicinities of the stations. This was accompanied by a significant decline in the average distance of ride-hailing trips to and from the station locations. These findings are consistent with ride-hailing services complementing public transport by providing first and last mile connectivity to the newly opened mass rapid transit system. Interestingly, this holds for both commuting and non-commuting trips and is strongest for mass rapid transit station locations that were not already served by Jakarta’s bus rapid transit system.
Gender and Fiscal Policy — A Methodological Proposal and Its Application to Jordan and Armenia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-22) Jellema, Jon; Grown, Caren; Fuchs, Alan; Wai-Poi, Matthew; Sosa, Mariano; Tiwari, Sailesh
Fiscal policies affect households and individuals in a variety of ways. Even though these effects are likely to be different for men and women, conventional tools of fiscal incidence analysis are typically unable to capture these gender differences. Using a particular type of incidence analysis known in the literature as the Commitment to Equity framework, this paper proposes a methodology to overcome this challenge. A particular novelty the paper introduces is the explicit incorporation of social reproduction into the fiscal incidence analysis framework, enabling the implicit valuation of unpaid work that is typically undertaken by women on activities such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for children and the elderly. Applying this methodology to the cases of Jordan and Armenia — two countries with very different approaches to fiscal policy and cultural norms around the economic and social roles of men and women — the paper also highlights some of the insights that this engendered perspective could add to standard fiscal incidence analysis.
Investing in People: Social Protection for Indonesia's 2045 Vision
(World Bank, Jakarta, 2020-04-30) Holmemo, Camilla; Acosta, Pablo; George, Tina; Palacios, Robert J.; Pinxten, Juul; Sen, Shonali; Tiwari, Sailesh
The Government of Indonesia's Vision for 2045 sets an ambitious path that will require significant investments in human capital and social protection Indonesia continues to set ambitious goals for its growth and development. The Government of Indonesia's (GoI) vision for 2045—when the country celebrates 100 years of independence—is to achieve high income status and reduce poverty to nearly zero. In addition to sustained growth and income opportunities for all, an inclusive and efficient social protection (SP) system will be essential to meet these ambitious goals. In most countries today, effective risk-sharing and SP policies play important roles in building equity, resilience and opportunity, and in strengthening human capital. Indonesia is no different. Risk sharing interventions can reduce and prevent poverty, and make growth more equitable by safeguarding households' human and physical capital. Over the past two decades, Indonesia's SP system has been fundamentally transformed. In particular, it has moved from the dominance of regressive consumer subsidies and ad-hoc crisis response to targeted and household based social assistance programs, with a massive coverage expansion. In terms of social insurance, recent years have seen an ongoing building and integration of its policies and institutions. This has all been made possible through better spending allocations and a build-up of the needed platforms to deliver programs effectively and efficiently.
Time to ACT: Realizing Indonesia's Urban Potential
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-10-03) Roberts, Mark; Gil Sander, Frederico; Tiwari, Sailesh; Roberts, Mark; Gil Sander, Frederico; Tiwari, Sailesh
In over 70 years since its independence, Indonesia has been transformed by urbanization, and within the next quarter of a century, its transition to an urban society will be almost complete. While urbanization has produced considerable benefits for Indonesians, urbanization has the potential to deliver more prosperity, inclusiveness and livability. Time to ACT: Realizing Indonesia's Urban Potential explores the extent to which urbanization in Indonesia has delivered in terms of prosperity, inclusiveness, and livability, and the fundamental reforms that can help the country realize its urban potential. In doing so, the report introduces a new policy framework - the ACT framework - to guide policymaking. This framework emphasizes three policy principles - the need to Augment the provision and quality of infrastructure and basic services across urban and rural locations; the need to better Connect places and people with jobs and opportunities; and the need to Target lagging areas and marginalized groups through well-designed place-based policies, as well as thoughtful urban planning and design. Using this framework, the report provides policy recommendations differentiated by types of place, grounded in solid empirical evidence
Ex-ante Poverty and Distributional Impacts of COVID–19 in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-26) Ali, Rabia; Tiwari, Sailesh
The Government of Indonesia has responded to the pandemic strongly, instituting several economic support measures for households. Budgetary outlays on the newly announced programs amount to an approximate doubling of spending on core social assistance programs.
Inequality of Opportunity in South Caucasus
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05) Fuchs, Alan; Tiwari, Sailesh; Shidiq, Akhmad Rizal
This paper discusses equality of opportunity in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, with an emphasis on access to labor market opportunities. It develops an inequality of opportunity index on access to good jobs and decomposes the contributing factors in the prevailing inequality. Then, it discusses the extent to which inequality in accessing human capital inputs among individuals during the early formative years may affect access to good jobs. The main takeaways are as follows. First, connections play an important role in obtaining access to good jobs in the South Caucasus, highlighting the unfairness in processes in the sub-region's labor markets. Second, access to good jobs—defined as work for 20 hours or more a week and work under contract or with tenure—is low in the South Caucasus in comparison with other parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Third, even among people who have access to these jobs, the share of the total inequality of opportunity that may be characterized as unfair is relatively high. Armenia and Azerbaijan stand out for the significant share of inequality in access to good jobs associated with gender differences. Fourth, the analysis on access to education and basic human capital inputs in the earlier, formative stages of life shows that learning performance in the South Caucasus tends to be poor and unequal across the life circumstances of children. Nonetheless, the coverage rates of basic human capital inputs are generally high; the relatively narrow inequalities arise mostly from spatial disparities. These results indicate that addressing the deep structural inequalities shaping the landscape of opportunity in the South Caucasus must be a key consideration in any strategy to share prosperity sustainably.
Uneven Odds, Unequal Outcomes: Inequality of Opportunity in the Middle East and North Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-06-23) Lara Ibarra, Gabriel; Krishnan, Nandini; Narayan, Ambar; Tiwari, Sailesh; Vishwanath, Tara
Perceptions of eroding living standards and low life satisfaction are widespread in the Middle East and North Africa region today, along with pessimism about prospects for economic mobility. Conventional measures of economic well-being offer little in the way of explanation – in most countries in the region, extreme poverty is low and declining and economic inequality is lower than in other parts of the world. This book investigates possible reasons for this disconnect, focusing on the role played by inadequate and unequal access to opportunities to realize one’s aspirations for economic mobility. The inability of most countries in the region to meet the aspirations of citizens is closely linked to persistent weaknesses in the labor markets where the pace of job creation has been chronically below levels required to absorb the growing and increasingly better educated population. A high degree of segmentation in the labor markets also puts the youth and women in the region at a particular disadvantage. While labor markets are critical for mobility, opportunities and life paths can diverge even earlier in life if access to basic services in health, education and infrastructure are unequally distributed among children in their formative years. This book documents sharp disparities in the quality of services available to children of varying birth circumstances in the region. Although the most intense debates in development coalesce around inequality of income or wealth, the notion of inequality of opportunity has an intuitive appeal that can bridge ideological differences. By drawing attention to the notion of equality of opportunity to create a level playing field for all sections of society, the book highlights the need to critically examine the social contract and governance structures that guide the delivery of services and are instrumental for implementing necessary reforms to make labor markets more dynamic and equitable.