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Narayan, Ambar

Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank
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Welfare economics, Labor economics, Inequality, Poverty and social impact, Impact evaluation and economic shocks, Policy and program evaluation
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Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank
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Last updated August 29, 2023
Biography
Ambar Narayan, a Lead Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank, leads and advises teams conducting policy analysis and research in development from a microeconomic perspective. Topics that he works on include inequality of opportunity, economic mobility, policy evaluation, economic transformation, country diagnostics, and impacts of economic shocks on households. Currently, he provides leadership to teams engaged in analyzing the distributional impacts of markets, institutions and private sector participation, and the inequality implications of COVID-19 for developing countries. Ambar has been a lead author for several large World Bank studies, including a recent global report on intergenerational mobility titled “Fair Progress?” as well as reports on inequality of opportunity, poverty, and the impacts of financial crisis in developing countries. In the past, he has worked in the South Asia region of the World Bank on knowledge and lending programs. He has authored a number of scholarly publications and working papers, which reflect the eclectic mix of topics he has worked on over the years. He holds a PhD in Economics from Brown University in the United States.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Does Access to Information Empower the Poor? Evidence from the Dominican Republic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05-01) Skoufias, Emmanuel ; Narita, Renata ; Narayan, Ambar
    This paper summarizes the results of the impact evaluation of the Access to Information pilot project on empowerment of citizens in poor municipalities in the Dominican Republic. Among the dimensions of empowerment investigated are civic knowledge, awareness and use of the right to information, perceptions of and trust in public services and institutions, civic participation, and measures of local governance. Data were collected in two rounds: a baseline round at the end of 2010 and a follow-up round in mid-2012. No impact is found on awareness and the use of information under the specific Access to Information rules. However, it is observed that individuals address more general complaints to governments as a result of the Access to Information program regardless of whether these are classified under the ATI law or not. Some positive and statistically significant impacts are found on local government responsiveness, prioritization and decisions about the municipal budget, and trust in and satisfaction with some local government services.
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    How Do Ex Ante Simulations Compare with Ex Post Evaluations? Evidence from the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs
    ( 2011-06-01) Leite, Phillippe ; Narayan, Ambar ; Skoufias, Emmanuel
    This paper compares the ex ante simulation of the impacts of conditional cash transfer programs against the ex post estimates of impacts obtained from experimental evaluations. Using data on program-eligible households in treatment areas from the same baseline surveys that are used for experimental evaluations of conditional cash transfer programs in Mexico and Ecuador, the authors use a micro-simulation model to derive ex ante estimates of the impact of the programs on enrollment rates and poverty. The estimates reveal that ex ante predictions of certain impacts of conditional cash transfer programs match up well against the benchmark estimates of ex post experimental studies. The findings seem to support the use of this model to assess the potential impact and cost efficiency of a conditional cash transfer program ex ante, in order to inform decisions about how the program would be designed.