Person:
Olivieri, Sergio

Global Practice on Poverty, The World Bank
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Fields of Specialization
Poverty and growth, Poverty measurement, Distributional impact of shocks, Labor informality, Inequality, Social Protection and Labor
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Global Practice on Poverty, The World Bank
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Last updated: July 12, 2023
Biography
Sergio Olivieri is an economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity department of the World Bank, based in Washington, DC.  His main research areas are ex-ante analysis of the distributional impact of macroeconomic shocks, understanding the main channels through which economic growth affects poverty reduction, income distribution and multidimensional poverty. Olivieri has published articles about labor informality, polarization, mobility and inequality issues, most of them focused on Latin-American countries. He has also contributed to research reports on inequality, poverty, social cohesion and macroeconomic shocks. Before joining the Bank, Olivieri worked as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nation Development Program and the European Commission. He has taught courses on micro-simulation and micro-decomposition techniques for public servants and staff in international organizations around the world. He has also worked as an assistant professor of labor economics in the Department of Economics of Universidad National de La Plata in Buenos Aires, and as a researcher in the university's Center of Distributional, Labor and Social Studies.
Citations 5 Scopus

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Publication
    The Distributive Impact of Taxes and Expenditures in Colombia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03) Jairo, Nunez; Olivieri, Sergio; Parra, Julieth; Pico, Julieth
    Colombia has reduced extreme poverty in the past 16 years by almost half, moderate poverty by 22 percentage points, and made more than four million Colombians jump the threshold of multidimensional poverty. However, it remains one of the most unequal countries in the region, after Brazil and Panama. Fiscal policy is one of the instruments that allow governments to speed up the decline in inequality levels and reduce poverty. This study presents an exhaustive and comprehensive analysis of the distributional impacts of taxes and expenditures in Colombia in 2017. It makes a methodological comparison with the Commitment to Equity, which was previously implemented, and includes multiple improvements in the methodology. The results suggest that the combined effect of taxes and social spending in Colombia contributes to poverty reduction between 0.3 and 2.6 percentage points for US$5.5 and US$3.2 per day per person respectively, while inequality is reduced by almost one Gini point. Taxes and direct transfers, as well as indirect transfers, are progressive and pro-poor, while indirect taxes are regressive and contribute to an increase in inequality. Finally, transfers in-kind for education and health services are progressive and contribute to the reduction of inequality.
  • Publication
    Spatial Heterogeneity and Household Life Cycle in the Multidimensional Poverty Index: The Case of Colombia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06-14) Felipe Balcázar, Carlos; Malásquez, Eduardo A.; Olivieri, Sergio; Pico, Julieth
    This note discusses the evolution of the MPI in Colombia since 2010 and describes some of the challenges associated with the spatial heterogeneity of multidimensional poverty across urban and rural areas, and the relationship between life cycle and the evolution of the MPI over time. Also, this note opens a discussion that has not been yet addressed by the literature on how to update the indicators in the MPI once these are no longer capturing significant deprivations.
  • Publication
    Gender Differences in Poverty in Colombia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08) Buitrago, Paola; Muller, Miriam; Olivieri, Sergio; Pico, Julieth
    This note presents the gender poverty profiles for Colombia using a lifecycle approach. In Colombia, as in the vast majority of countries around the world, girls and boys are consistently poorer than adults and seniors. Notwithstanding, the difference on poverty rates between women and men during their reproductive age in Colombia is around 6 p.p. while in the world is around 2 p.p. Another interesting finding is that the likelihood of being poor diminishes with formal education, for both women and men. Nevertheless, as the level of formal education increases, the share of women among the poor do so also. This note is organized as follows: section one presents the poverty rates for women and men, by education level, marital status, location, and employment type. Section two presents the results of the lifecycle approach. The authors present the gender poverty profile when variables as age, demographic, and economic composition are combined with gender, to define the profiles. And finally, section three presents some final remarks.
  • Publication
    Welfare Dynamics in Colombia: Results from Synthetic Panels
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05) Balcazar, Carlos Felipe; Dang, Hai-Anh; Malasquez, Eduardo; Olivieri, Sergio; Pico, Julieth
    This study explores the short-run transitions between poverty, vulnerability, and middle class, using synthetic panels constructed from multiple rounds of Colombia's Integrated Household Survey (in Spanish Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares). The paper reports results from two approaches to define a vulnerability line: the first one employs a nonparametric and parsimonious model, while the second utilizes a fully parametric regression model with covariates. The estimation results suggest a range of between $8 to $13 per day per person in 2005 purchasing power parity dollars as the vulnerability line. Using an average daily vulnerability line of $10 per day per person, subsequent estimates on welfare dynamics suggest that, during the past decade, 20 percent of the Colombian population experienced downward mobility, and 24 percent experienced upward mobility. Furthermore, upward mobility increases with higher education levels and is lower for female-headed households.