Person:
Medvedev, Denis
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
International trade,
Jobs,
Inequality,
Poverty,
Private Sector Development,
Financial Sector Development
Degrees
Departments
Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Denis Medvedev manages the Firms, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation unit of the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank Group. The unit is a team of microeconomists and development practitioners working to provide cutting-edge, evidence-based advice to developing countries around the globe on policies to promote innovation, entrepreneurship, firm upgrading, technology adoption, and productivity. It accomplishes this by carrying out original research, contributing to lending and technical assistance engagements led by the World Bank Group regional units, and collaborating with multilateral institutions as well as bilateral partners and donors. Denis’ own research has recently focused on firm growth and productivity, while his earlier work explored economic growth, income distribution dynamics, international trade, and the Sustainable Development Goals. In his previous assignments at the World Bank, he was responsible for policy dialogue, lending operations, and analytical work across a range of countries in Africa, East and South Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America & the Caribbean, as well as developing forward-looking scenarios for the global economy in the Development Prospects group. He is an author of more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, books and book chapters, and World Bank reports. He holds a Ph.D. from the American University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 23
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Publication
Do Remittances Have a Flip Side? A General Equilibrium Analysis of Remittances, Labor Supply Responses, and Policy Options for Jamaica
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-03)Econometric analysis has established a negative relationship between labor supply and remittances in Jamaica. The authors incorporate this ex-post evidence in a general equilibrium model to investigate economywide effects of increased remittance inflows. In this model, remittances reduce labor force participation by increasing the reservation wages of recipients. This exacerbates the real exchange rate appreciation, hurting Jamaica's export base and small manufacturing import-competing sector. Within the narrow margins of maneuver of a highly indebted government, the authors show that a revenue-neutral policy response of a simultaneous reduction in payroll taxes and increase in sales taxes can effectively counteract these potentially negative effects of remittances. -
Publication
Global Growth and Distribution : Are China and India Reshaping the World?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11)Over the past 20 years, aggregate measures of global inequality have changed little even if significant structural changes have been observed. High growth rates of China and India lifted millions out of poverty, while the stagnation in many African countries caused them to fall behind. Using the World Bank's LINKAGE global general equilibrium model and the newly developed Global Income Distribution Dynamics (GIDD) tool, this paper assesses the distribution and poverty effects of a scenario where these trends continue in the future. Even by anticipating a deceleration, growth in China and India is a key force behind the expected convergence of per-capita incomes at the global level. Millions of Chinese and Indian consumers will enter into a rapidly emerging global middle class-a group of people who can afford, and demand access to, the standards of living previously reserved mainly for the residents of developed countries. Notwithstanding these positive developments, fast growth is often characterized by high urbanization and growing demand for skills, both of which result in widening of income distribution within countries. These opposing distributional effects highlight the importance of analyzing global disparities by taking into account - as the GIDD does - income dynamics between and within countries. -
Publication
Challenges to MDG Achievement in Low Income Countries : Lessons from Ghana and Honduras
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11)This paper summarizes the policy lessons from applications of the Maquette for MDG Simulations (MAMS) model to two low income countries: Ghana and Honduras. Results show that costs of MDGs achievement could reach 10-13 percent of GDP by 2015, although, given the observed low productivity in the provision of social services, significant savings may be realized by improving efficiency. Sources of financing also matter: foreign aid inflows can reduce international competitiveness through real exchange appreciation, while domestic financing can crowd out the private sector and slow poverty reduction. Spending a large share of a fixed budget on growth-enhancing infrastructure may mean sacrificing some human development, even if higher growth is usually associated with lower costs of social services. The pursuit of MDGs increases demand for skills: while this encourages higher educational attainments, in the short term this could lead to increased income inequality and a lower poverty elasticity of growth. -
Publication
Beyond Trade : The Impact of Preferential Trade Agreements on Foreign Direct Investment Inflows
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11)The author investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on the net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows of member countries using a comprehensive database of PTAs in a panel setting. He finds that PTA membership is associated with a positive change in net FDI inflows, and the FDI gains are increasing in the market size of the PTA partners and their proximity to the host country. The author identifies several different channels through which preferential trade liberalization may affect FDI, and confirms that both threshold effects (signing the agreement) and market size effects (joining a larger and faster-growing common market) are important determinants of net FDI inflows, although the latter seem to dominate. The estimated relationship is largely driven by North-South PTAs, and is most pronounced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the period when the majority of "deep integration" PTAs had been advanced. -
Publication
Preferential Trade Agreements and Their Role in World Trade
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-10)The author investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade flows using a comprehensive database of PTAs in force and a detailed matrix of world trade. He shows that total trade between PTA partners is a poor proxy for preferential trade (trade in tariff lines where preferences are likely to matter): while the former amounted to one-third of global trade in 2000-02, the latter was between one-sixth and one-tenth of world trade. His gravity model estimates indicate that using total rather than preferential trade to assess the impact of PTAs leads to a significant downward bias in the PTA coefficient. The author finds that product exclusions and long phase-in periods significantly limit preferential trade, and their removal could more than double trade in tariff lines above 3 percent of most-favored-nation (MFN) duties. He also shows that the effects of PTAs on trade vary by type of agreement and are increasing in the incomes of PTA partners. -
Publication
Informality and Profitability: Evidence from a New Firm Survey in Ecuador
(Taylor and Francis, 2015-08-13)This article estimates the impact of informality on profits using a new survey administered to 1,200 firms with less than 50 employees in four cities in Ecuador. The article proposes a novel definition of informality which explicitly recognises that most firms comply with some regulations but not others. Accounting for firm selection and controlling for a large set of firm, owner and location characteristics, the article finds that more formal firms tend to be more profitable and have higher output per worker. This impact operates, inter alia, through improved access to credit and higher sales through issuance of tax receipts. -
Publication
Advanced-Country Policies and Emerging-Market Currencies: The Impact of U.S. Tapering on India’s Rupee
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-03)The global financial crisis and its aftermath have triggered extraordinary policy responses in advanced countries. The impacts of these policy responses—from asset price bubbles to currency depreciations—have often been felt in the developing world. As tapering talk evolves into actual withdrawal of quantitative easing in the United States, and as the Euro Zone launches its own quantitative easing program, there are good reasons to be concerned about the financial stability of emerging economies. India's experience with U.S. tapering offers insights into what to expect. This paper estimates the contribution of external and domestic factors to short-term fluctuations in the value of the Indian rupee between 2004 and 2014, using a rich dynamic model that controls for a large number of exchange rate determinants. The paper finds that a global surprise factor, more than domestic vulnerabilities, was the main driver of the large rupee depreciation in summer 2013. With the surprise factor gone, further normalization of U.S. monetary policy is unlikely to have significant effects on the rupee exchange rate. -
Publication
Informality and Profitability : Evidence from a New Firm Survey in Ecuador
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05)This paper estimates the impact of informality on firm profits using a new firm-level survey designed specifically for this study. The survey was administered to about 1,200 firms with 50 employees or less in Ecuador's two largest cities, Quito and Guayaquil, plus two main centers of economic activity near the northern and southern borders. The paper's results confirm that the extent of firms' compliance with a set of regulatory requirements is linked to the perceived costs and benefits of informality, such as the probability of detection by the authorities and the likelihood of being fined. Nonetheless, taking into account the non-random placement of firms along the formality-informality spectrum and controlling for a large set of firm, owner, and location characteristics, the paper finds that more formal firms tend to be more profitable and have higher output per worker. This impact operates, inter alia, through more formal firms' ability to obtain improved access to credit and achieve higher sales by issuing receipts to clients. -
Publication
High-Growth Firms: Facts, Fiction, and Policy Options for Emerging Economies
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019)Remarkably, a small fraction of firms account for most of the job and output creation in high-income and developing countries alike. Does this imply that the path to enabling more economic dynamism lies in selectively targeting high-potential firms? Or would pursuing broad-based reforms that minimize distortions be more effective? Inspired by these questions, this book presents new evidence on the incidence, characteristics, and drivers of high-growth firms based on in-depth studies of firm dynamics in Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey. Its findings reveal that high-growth firms are not only powerful engines of job and output growth but also create positive spillovers for other businesses along the value chain. At the same time, the book debunks several myths about policies to support firm dynamism that focus on outward characteristics, such as firm size, sector, location, or past performance. Its findings show that most firms struggle to sustain rapid rates of expansion and that the relationship between high growth and productivity is often weak. Consequently, the book calls for a shift toward policies that improve the quality of firm growth by supporting innovation, managerial skills, and firms’ ability to leverage global linkages and agglomeration. To help policy makers structure policies that support firm growth, the book proposes a new ABC framework of growth entrepreneurship: improving Allocative efficiency, encouraging Business-tobusiness spillovers, and strengthening firm Capabilities. This book is the third volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers. -
Publication
South Asia's Turn: Policies to Boost Competitiveness and Create the Next Export Powerhouse
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-10-06)South Asia has a huge need to create more and better jobs for a growing population – especially in the manufacturing industries where it is underperforming as compared to East Asia. The report examines three critical and relatively understudied drivers of competitiveness: Economies of agglomeration: firms and workers accrue benefits from locating close together in cities or clusters through urbanization and localization. Participation in global value chains: stronger competitive pressures weed out least productive firms while others improve by gaining access to new knowledge and better inputs. Firm capabilities: in order to operate close to what would be considered optimum efficiency levels given the prevailing factor prices and thus employ South Asia’s abundant labor. The report entails four case studies of critical industries: apparel (based on the “Stitches to Riches” World Bank report), automotive, electronics and agribusiness. The report also draws on relevant good practices from around the world. The report shows that South Asia has great untapped competitiveness potential (including in all four industries studied). Realizing this potential would require the governments in the region to pursue second generation trade policy reforms for firms to better contribute to and benefit from global value chains (e.g. facilitating imports for exporters), to facilitate the development of industrial clusters in secondary cities (cheaper and less congested than the metros) as well as to deploy policies to improve the capabilities of firms, especially SMEs.