Person:
Bossavie, Laurent

Last updated:October 23, 2025

Biography

Laurent Bossavie is a senior economist in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice, Europe and Central Asia unit, at the World Bank. His main areas of expertise are labor economics and the economics of migration. His work explores the role of labor and migration policies in shaping the labor market outcomes of workers in both high-income and developing countries. He has edited four books, and his research on these topics has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Human Resources and the Journal of Development Economics. He holds a doctorate in economics from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

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TIDES of Change: Igniting Productivity Growth in Europe and Central Asia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-25) Iacovone, Leonardo; Aviomoh, Henry; Belacin, Matias; Bossavie, Laurent; Cusolito, Ana Paula; de Hoyos, Rafael; Ottaviano, Gianmarco; Scheifele, Fabian; Torre, Iván; Yoshino, Yutaka
Europe and Central Asia (ECA) is at a turning point. After a period of convergence and reform-driven growth during the first decade of the 2000s, the region’s productivity engine has lost momentum. Total factor productivity growth has halved since the global financial crisis, and the gains from capital deepening and labor expansion are no longer sufficient to sustain economic growth. If pre- 2008 trends in productivity growth had continued, average incomes would be around 60 percent higher today. Instead, misallocated resources, incomplete integration into global markets, and weak firm capabilities during a period of stalled reforms have left the region below its potential. This report lays out a new agenda for boosting productivity. Drawing on unique firm-level data from across the region, it shows how deeper trade integration, smarter investment, and adoption of technology, coupled with improved firm capabilities and investments in workers’ skills, can unlock significant productivity gains. The report highlights the need to face the challenges of the unrealized potential of exports and foreign direct investment, insufficient level of digital technology adoption, and limited investment in skills training (offered by only one in five firms in ECA today), coupled with weak foundational skills. The evidence is clear: Addressing these challenges through targeted reforms in improving market functioning, technology adoption, export promotion, and skills development is crucial for unlocking the region’s productivity potential. The path forward is captured by the policy framework of trade, investment, digitalization, efficiency, and skills (TIDES)—the levers that can help boost the region’s productivity. This flagship report is not just a diagnosis of what went wrong; it is a call to action for what must come next. Focusing on TIDES, with the right policies and political will, ECA can reclaim its momentum and deliver a new era of shared prosperity.
The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31) Bossavie, Laurent; Garrote Sánchez, Daniel; Makovec, Mattia
The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.
Corruption as a Push and Pull Factor of Migration Flows: Evidence from European Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-09-14) Bernini, Andrea; Bossavie, Laurent; Garrote Sanchez, Daniel; Makovec, Mattia; Garrote Sánchez, Daniel
Conclusive evidence on the relationship between corruption and migration has remained scant in the literature to date. Using data from 2008 to 2018 on bilateral migration flows across European Union and European Free Trade Association countries and four measures of corruption, this paper shows that corruption acts as both a push factor and a pull factor for migration patterns. Based on a gravity model, a one-unit increase in the corruption level in the origin country is associated with a 11 percent increase in out-migration. The same one-unit increase in the destination country is associated with a 10 percent decline in in-migration.
Impacts of Temporary Migration on Development in Origin Countries
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-04-17) Bossavie, Laurent; Özden, Çağlar
Temporary migration is widespread globally. While the literature has traditionally focused on the impacts of permanent migration on destination countries, evidence on the effects of temporary migration on origin countries has grown over the past decade. This paper highlights that the economic development impacts, especially on low- and middle-income origin countries, are complex, dynamic, context-specific, and multichanneled. The paper identifies five main pathways: (a) labor supply; (b) human capital; (c) financial capital and entrepreneurship; (d) aggregate welfare and poverty; and (e) institutions and social norms. Several factors shape these pathways and their eventual impacts. These include initial economic conditions at home, the scale and double selectivity of emigration and return migration, whether migration was planned to be temporary ex ante, and employment and human capital accumulation opportunities experienced by migrants while they are overseas. Meaningful policy interventions to increase the development impacts of temporary migration require proper analysis, which, in turn, depends on high-quality data on workers’ employment trajectories, as well as their decision processes on the timing of their migration and return. These are currently the biggest research challenges to overcome to study the development impacts of temporary migration.
Impacts of Extremist Ideologies on Refugees' Integration: Evidence from Afghan Refugees in Tajikistan
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-28) Bossavie, Laurent; Rozo, Sandra V.; Urbina, María José
Abstract amended in January 2024: This paper examines the effect of exposure to extremist ideologies in the home country on the subsequent integration of refugees in host countries. For this purpose, it combines a rich census of Afghan refugees living in Tajikistan in 2023, following the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan, with uniquely scraped district-yearly data on the territories controlled by the Taliban, U.S. allies, and contested territories between the two factions between 2017 and 2021. The empirical strategy compares the integration outcomes of refugees who experienced varying exposure to extremism generated by the exogenous and sudden dramatic shift in Taliban’s territorial control in their province of birth between 2017 and 2021. Findings suggest that refugees who were born in provinces with increased Taliban territorial control between 2017 and 2021, despite having comparable pre-migration characteristics to refugees born elsewhere in Afghanistan, are less integrated into their Tajik host communities than the other refugees. These refugees also show lower educational levels and more mental health problems.
Impacts of Temporary Migration on Development in Origin Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04) Bossavie, Laurent; Özden, Çağlar
Temporary migration is widespread globally. While the literature has traditionally focused on the impacts of permanent migration on destination countries, evidence on the effects of temporary migration on origin countries has grown over the past decade. This paper highlights that the economic development impacts, especially on low- and middle-income origin countries are complex, dynamic, context-specific and multi-channeled. The paper identifies five main pathways: (i) labor supply, (ii) human capital, (iii) financial capital and entrepreneurship, (iv) aggregate welfare and poverty, and (v) institutions and social norms. Several factors shape these pathways and their eventual impacts. These include initial economic conditions at home, the scale and double selectivity of emigration and return migration, and employment and human capital accumulation opportunities experienced by migrants while they are overseas, among others. Meaningful policy interventions to increase the development impacts of temporary migration require proper analysis, which, in turn, depends on high quality data on workers’ employment trajectories. This is currently the biggest research challenge to overcome to study the development impacts of temporary migration.
Return Migration and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from South Asia
(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2022-09) Bossavie, Laurent; Wang, He
Despite the magnitude of return migration from overseas to South Asia, the labor market outcomes of return migrants to this region have been understudied. This paper aims at filling this gap by examining systematic differences between the labor market outcomes of return migrants and nonmigrants in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan using nationally-representative surveys that include information on past migration. Conditional regression analysis is used with a focus on four labor market outcomes: (i) labor force status (ii) sectoral choice (iii) employment type, and (iv) earnings. The paper finds that return migrants are somewhat less likely to be employed than nonmigrants, which is mainly driven by returnees who returned at an older age. As evidenced in other contexts, return migrants in Bangladesh and Pakistan are more likely to become entrepreneurs compared with nonmigrants. Self-employed returnees are also more likely to hire paid employees and to be engaged in non-farm activities, compared with nonmigrant entrepreneurs. Return migrants who become employees earn a small wage premium relative to nonmigrants, compared with contexts where temporary migrants are higher-skilled. The returnee wage premium, however, is larger in the construction sector where most temporary migrants were employed overseas.
The Effects of Subsidizing Social Security Contributions: Job Creation or Informality Reduction?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-01) Asik, Gunes; Bossavie, Laurent; Kluve, Jochen; Nas Ozen, Efsan; Nebiler, Metin; Oviedo, Ana Maria
This paper evaluates the impact of an employment subsidy scheme covering employers’ social contribution costs on registered employment in small firms in Turkey. It utilizes a rich, firm-level administrative data set with monthly frequency, which allows for closely following the dynamics of registered employment in firms before and after the implementation of the subsidy. The empirical approach utilizes the geographically targeted implementation of the subsidy to estimate its effects using a difference-in-difference specification. The paper finds that the subsidy scheme had a sizable and positive impact on registered employment in small firms. The results are robust across specifications and to the choice of the control group. Positive effects on formal employment are also fairly constant and sustained over time. Corroborative evidence suggests that the positive effects on registered employment are mainly driven by the formalization of existing workers as opposed to new job creation. Therefore, the results indicate that social security contribution subsidies in small firms can be effective in reducing informality in contexts where informal employment remains common.
Occupational Hazards: Migrants and the Economic and Health Risks of COVID-19 in Western Europe
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-12) Bossavie, Laurent; Garrote Sanchez, Daniel; Makovec, Mattia; Ozden, Caglar; Garrote Sánchez, Daniel
This paper investigates the economic and health risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic for migrant workers in the European Union. It first assesses migrants’ economic and health vulnerabilities using ex ante measures based on both supply and demand shocks. The analysis finds that immigrants were more vulnerable than native-born workers to both income- and health-related risks, and that this greater exposure stems from the occupations in which migrant workers are concentrated. Migrants work to a greater degree than native-born citizens in occupations that are less amenable to teleworking arrangements, and in economic sectors that experienced greater reductions in demand during the pandemic. This has led to an increase in both their income and employment risks. The paper shows that individual characteristics, such as educational attainment, age, and geographical location, fail to explain the native-migrant gap in exposure to economic and health risks posed by the pandemic. Limited language ability, the concentration of migrants in jobs with labor shortages among native-born workers, and a reliance on immigrant networks to find jobs all appear to play significant roles in migrants’ exposure to pandemic-related risks. Finally, the paper finds that actual job losses in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, are highly correlated with ex-ante vulnerabilities: immigrant workers experienced significantly higher rates of job losses, which partly originates from their greater concentration in non-teleworkable jobs. Ex-ante vulnerabilities, however, only explain part of the migrant-native gap in job losses that followed the pandemic and being an immigrant still imposes additional risks.
Is Consanguinity an Impediment to Child Development?
(Taylor and Francis, 2020-01-14) Mete, Cem; Bossavie, Laurent; Giles, John; Alderman, Harold
Marriages between blood relatives—also known as consanguineous unions—are widespread in North Africa, Central and West Asia, and South Asia. Researchers have suggested that consanguinity has adverse effects on child development, but assessing its impact is not straightforward, as the decision to marry a relative might be endogenous to other socio-economic factors. Using a unique data set collected in rural Pakistan, this paper assesses the extent to which consanguinity is linked to children’s cognitive and physical development. It exploits grandfathers’ land ownership (current and past) and maternal grandparent mortality to identify the effect of endogenous consanguinity on child development. Children born into consanguineous unions have lower cognitive scores, lower height-for-age, and a higher likelihood of being severely stunted. More importantly, adverse effects are greater after accounting for the endogeneity of consanguinity, suggesting that impacts on child development are substantial, and likely to be larger than suggested in previous studies.