Person:
Medvedev, Denis

Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation
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International trade, Jobs, Inequality, Poverty, Private Sector Development, Financial Sector Development
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Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation
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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.
Citations 7 Scopus

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
  • Publication
    Preferential Trade Agreements and Their Role in World Trade
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-10) Medvedev, Denis
    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
    Is the Developing World Catching up? Global Convergence and National Rising Dispersion
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008-09) Bussolo, Maurizio; Medvedev, Denis
    The present study uses the GIDD, a CGE-microsimulation model for Global Income Distribution Dynamics, to understand the ex-ante dynamics of global income distribution. Three main robust results emerge. First, under a set of realistic assumptions, there will be a reduction in global income inequality by 2030. This potential reduction can be fully accounted for by the projected convergence in average incomes across countries, with poor and populous countries growing faster than the rest of the world. Second, this convergence process will be accompanied by a widening of income distribution in two-thirds of the developing countries; the main cause being increasing skill premia. Third, a trend that may counter-balance the potential anti-globalization sentiment is the emergence of a global middle class: a group of consumers who demand access to, and have the means to purchase, international goods and services. The results show that the share of these consumers in the global population is likely to more than double in the next 20 years. These ex-ante trends in global income distribution suggest that the mid-1990s could be seen as a turning point after which global inequality began showing a negative tendency.
  • Publication
    Distributional Effects of the Panama Canal Expansion
    (2011-10-01) Bussolo, Maurizio; Medvedev, Denis
    This paper uses a dynamic macro-micro framework to evaluate the potential distributional effects of the expansion of the Panama Canal. The results show that large macroeconomic effects are only likely during the operations phase (2014 and onward), and income gains are likely to be concentrated at the top of the income distribution. The additional foreign exchange inflows during the construction and operations phases result in the loss of competitiveness of non-Canal sectors (Dutch disease) and in higher domestic prices, which hurt the poorest consumers. In addition, the construction and operation activities increase demand for more educated non-farm formal workers. Although these changes encourage additional labor movement out of agriculture and from the informal to the formal sector, much of the impact is manifested in growing wage disparities and widening income inequality. Using the additional revenues of the Canal expansion in a targeted cash transfer program such as "Red de Oportunidades", the Government of Panama could offset the adverse distributional effects and eradicate extreme poverty.
  • Publication
    Global Poverty and Distributional Impacts of Agricultural Distortions
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06) Bussolo, Maurizio; Medvedev, Denis
    This paper assesses the potential impacts of the removal of agricultural and other trade distortions using a newly developed dataset and methodological approach for evaluating the global poverty and inequality effects of policy reforms. It finds that liberalization of agriculture will increase global extreme poverty (US$1 a day) slightly and by almost 1 percent if other goods trade is also liberalized; but the number of people living on less than $2 a day will fall by almost 1 percent. Beneath these small aggregate changes, most countries witness a substantial reduction in poverty while South Asia where half of the world's poor reside will experience an increase in extreme (but not moderate) poverty incidence due to high rates of protection afforded to its unskilled labor-intensive agricultural sectors. The distributional changes also are projected to be mild, but again exhibit a strong regional pattern: inequality falls in Latin America, which is characterized by high initial inequality, and rises in South Asia, has relatively low income inequality.
  • Publication
    Preferential Liberalization and Its Economy-Wide Effects in Honduras
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02) Medvedev, Denis
    This paper quantifies the likely benefits of trade and investment liberalization in a small, poor, open economy, using the accession of Honduras to the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement as a case study. The results show that bilateral trade liberalization with the United States is likely to have almost no effect on welfare in Honduras, while the reciprocal removal of protection vis-a-vis the rest of Central America would lead to significantly larger gains. Potential gains from increased net foreign direct investment inflows overwhelm those expected from trade reform alone, particularly if the new foreign direct investment generates productivity spillovers. However, if it is to replace Honduran investment rather than complement domestic capital formation, growth performance is unlikely to improve and may even suffer. The paper's results identify several areas for policy attention by Honduran policy makers to make the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement more development-friendly. These include carefully considering the budgetary implications of trade reform, widening social safety nets to counter the trends toward increasing income inequality, and sequencing the reforms to ensure a close alignment of Honduras' comparative advantage on the regional and global markets.
  • Publication
    Poverty Effects of Higher Food Prices : A Global Perspective
    (2009-03-01) De Hoyos, Rafael E.; Medvedev, Denis
    The spike in food prices between 2005 and the first half of 2008 has highlighted the vulnerabilities of poor consumers to higher prices of agricultural goods and generated calls for massive policy action. This paper provides a formal assessment of the direct and indirect impacts of higher prices on global poverty using a representative sample of 63 to 93 percent of the population of the developing world. To assess the direct effects, the paper uses domestic food consumer price data between January 2005 and December 2007--when the relative price of food rose by an average of 5.6 percent --to find that the implied increase in the extreme poverty headcount at the global level is 1.7 percentage points, with significant regional variation. To take the second-order effects into account, the paper links household survey data with a global general equilibrium model, finding that a 5.5 percent increase in agricultural prices (due to rising demand for first-generation biofuels) could raise global poverty in 2010 by 0.6 percentage points at the extreme poverty line and 0.9 percentage points at the moderate poverty line. Poverty increases at the regional level vary substantially, with nearly all of the increase in extreme poverty occurring in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • 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) Bussolo, Maurizio; Medvedev, Denis
    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
    Beyond Trade : The Impact of Preferential Trade Agreements on Foreign Direct Investment Inflows
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11) Medvedev, Denis
    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
    Global Growth and Distribution : Are China and India Reshaping the World?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11) Bussolo, Maurizio; Medvedev, Denis
    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
    Global Income Distribution and Poverty in the Absence of Agricultural Distortions
    (2009-03-01) Bussolo, Maurizio; Medvedev, Denis
    This paper assesses the potential impacts of the removal of agriculture trade distortions using a newly developed dataset and methodological approach for evaluating the global poverty and inequality effects of policy reforms. It finds that liberalization of agriculture and food could increase global extreme poverty (US$1 a day) by 0.2 percent and lower moderate poverty (US$2 a day) by 0.3 percent. Beneath these small aggregate changes, most countries witness a substantial reduction in poverty while South Asia-where half of the world's poor reside-experiences an increase in extreme poverty incidence due to high rates of protection afforded to unskilled-intensive agricultural sectors. The distributional changes are likely to be mild, but exhibit a strong regional pattern. Inequality is likely to fall in regions such as Latin America, which are characterized by high initial inequality, and rise in regions like South Asia, characterized by low initial inequality.