Economist

Economist Job #: req35500 Organization: World Bank Sector: Poverty Reduction Grade: GF Term Duration: 3 years 0 months Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment Location: Brasilia,Brazil Required Language(s): Portuguese and English Preferred Language(s): Portuguese and English Closing Date: 2/13/2026 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC

Description

The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges.  For more information, visit www.worldbank.org.

VPU Context: 

The World Bank Group serves 33 client countries in Latin America and the Caribbean Region (LCR). Clients range from large rapidly growing sophisticated middle-income clients to IDA countries to small Caribbean states to one fragile state, and to varying degrees face three key challenges – low productivity and growth, low quality jobs and low resilience to shocks.  The region is tackling these challenges with a strong WBG approach, underpinned by selectivity and complementarity between the value added of public and private arms, and in strong partnership with relevant regional development partners.

A. The challenge of low growth. After recovering lost output, the region is returning to pre-pandemic low growth and productivity scenario. After a solid post-pandemic rebound in economic activity (7.2% and 3.9% growth in 2021 and 2022 respectively), GDP growth returned to the pre-pandemic low growth around 2.2% in 2023 and 2024, with a medium-term outlook of 2.5%.  With an average Gini co-efficient of [0.52] LAC remains also one of the most unequal regions in the world. It is a region where the bottom 50% earn 27 times less than the top 10%. It also represents stark differences in opportunity, a child born today in the poorest 20% quintile in LAC will on average be 17 percentage points less productive than a child born in the richest 20%.

B. The challenge of quality jobs: the need for better quality jobs is paramount, with 6.2% unemployment rates, these low levels mask a deeper issue of job quality. Reflecting stagnating living standards, labor earnings have only grown by 1% or less per year in most countries over the past decade, and some 19% of workers in the region are earning incomes below the poverty line. 

• Investing in foundational infrastructure critical to job creation, LAC needs to invest at least 3.1% of GDP in infrastructure investments per year, yet it only invests 2%, which is significantly lower than the world average of 5.4% of GDP. This underinvestment in physical infrastructure, including in key infrastructure sectors (including resilient transport, water, energy etc.) is holding back potential for better jobs. The region is supporting clients by supporting selective transformative infrastructure projects (e.g. urban mobility, regional transport and connectivity).   On human infrastructure challenge, firms in the region continue to cite skills shortages (55% of firms in LAC vs 45% in MIC regions) as a key barrier to growth and job creation. A child born in LAC is expected to reach only 56 percent of their productive potential. Three out of four 15-year olds fail basic math proficiency and cannot read adequately the soft side involves supporting clients revamp their education and health sectors. The region is supporting clients to revamp their education and health care sectors.  

• The LAC region also needs to foster a predictable, business-enabling policy and regulatory environment. These include ensuring macro stability, eliminating restrictive business regulations in product and factor markets, and improving access to finance, especially long-term capital. Labor market regulations in LAC are noted to be on par with the most restrictive labor market regimes among OECD countries. Further, enforcement of competition policy needs to be supported due to high levels of market concentration in LAC markets: the 50 largest firms in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile have revenues greater than 30% of GDP.  At 55% of GDP, domestic credit to the private sector remains much lower than EAP (178%).

• Private capital needs to be appropriately incentivized to support the provision of public goods and investments in key sectors, especially those that have the highest potential to enable and/or create better quality jobs. However, at only 19.8% of GDP, gross capital formation remains lowest among all regions (EAP is at 38% and South Asia at 30%). Private capital mobilization in the region is being held back by shallow capital markets, lack of long-term finance, high cost of capital, regulatory and institutional barriers (including in PPP frameworks). Based on country contexts, the WBG will support investments in productive clusters (energy/mining, value added manufacturing, agribusiness, tourism, etc) across the public-private spectrum.

C. The challenge of vulnerability to shocks.  Building resilience of the countries to shocks, including natural disasters, through contingent financing and other innovative risk management platforms at country and regional levels is critical given the high exposure to climate–related disasters and natural hazards. The Central America and the Caribbean have recurrent hurricanes that have impacts on GDP significantly higher than the regional average of 1.7%. Several countries are experiencing deep, long droughts, increasingly intense storms, and floods that disrupt economic activities and affect livelihoods, with impacts on the most vulnerable populations.

Poverty Global Practice

The Poverty and Equity Global Practice, part of the Prosperity Vertical, plays a key role in supporting the World Bank Group’s goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. It generates knowledge and dialogue and supports operational solutions, focusing on poverty monitoring and statistical capacity building, markets and institutions, fiscal and social policy, and resilience to shocks and sustainability. The practice is organized into seven regionally-oriented units—EAP, ECA, LAC, MNA, SAR and two in AFR—each managed by a Practice Manager.

The development and flow of global knowledge within the practice is facilitated through three thematic programs: (1) jobs; (2) fiscal policy; and (3) climate change. Gender is mainstreamed across the work program. Additionally, the work is supported by five working groups on data and solutions: (i) statistical modernization; (ii) global monitoring; (iii) micro modelling; (iv) spatial analysis; and (v) high frequency monitoring. Every member of the practice is affiliated with, participates in and contributes to the work of at least one of the thematic programs or working groups.

The Poverty & Equity Global Practice is a family of empirical micro-economists with deep expertise in household surveys and poverty measurement, and broad experience in using household and other \"micro\" data to inform the design and implementation of policies and programs to reduce poverty and enhance shared prosperity. We work with government and external partners, at the country-level and globally, in ensuring their efforts to eliminate extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity are enhanced by empirically grounded analyses of household welfare. Internally, we work with country, regional, and global teams across all practices to operationalize the goals of the WBG by providing robust evidence base and analytics using micro data.

The Poverty and Equity Global Practice delivers the following to our clients in support of these critical development challenges:

• Advice and knowledge to help better understand the relationship between growth, poverty, and inequality.

• Diagnostics that help identify key policies and multisectoral solutions that effectively reduce poverty and benefit the less well-off.

• Monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs to enhance the poverty impact of interventions and inform mid-stream correction.

• Monitoring and tracking poverty and other welfare outcomes.

• Capacity-building and knowledge sharing (in client countries and within the WBG) of distributional impact analytics.

• Innovative data collection and measurement methods that can help fill crucial data gaps.

Duties and accountabilities

The Poverty and Equity Global Practice in the Latin America and the Caribbean Region is seeking to locally hire an Economist (GF) to contribute to its analytical and operational programs in Brazil. The selected candidate will be based in Brasilia. The economist will participate as a core member of the Poverty team, responsible for:

• Identifying and assessing policy issues. Effectively communicating findings or points of view in written and verbal formats.

• Developing excellent working relationships with Bank’s counterparts as well as with country management units and other Global Practices within the WBG. Leading the mainstreaming of poverty and equity insights into the Bank’s dialogue and operations.

• Conducting poverty, welfare and labor market analysis combining different data sources using Brazilian microdata (such as PNAD-C, RAIS and others); World Bank instruments (such as datalibweb, WB-SEDLAC, LABLAC, LEL, PIP/GMD, and others); as well as administrative, online and satellite databases. Analyses should consider up-to-date methodologies, pursuing the most suitable empirical methods to address distributional issues; and be informed by detailed literature reviews.

• Supporting the implementation, update and maintenance of microsimulation tools to obtain poverty projections, and the likely distributional impact of policy changes, especially those related to fiscal and social policies.

• Disseminating the findings of analytical work under different formats (research papers, policy notes, briefs, presentations, etc.) to different audiences in workshops, conferences, training, interviews, podcasts, and policy dialogue, among others. Training Bank’s counterparts on the use of Bank’s tools and analytical approaches.

Selection Criteria

• Advanced degree (Master’s or Ph.D.) in economics, statistics, or other related disciplines, with strong analytical and quantitative skills.

• At least five years of relevant professional experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Outstanding analytical skills and experience in: (a) poverty, inequality and labor markets; and (b) econometrics and quantitative analysis of household surveys including panel data. Advanced programing knowledge in Stata.

• A clear understanding of the policy-making process and the Bank’s role in driving development within that process.

• Highly motivated, with initiative and a positive attitude. Ability to work flexibly on a range of assignments, to adjust to changing needs, and to prioritize evolving tasks.

• Ability to collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary Bank’s staff teams. Strong interpersonal, and team skills; demonstrated client orientation; sensitized in working in a diverse and multicultural environment.

• Strong written and oral communication skills, including the ability to present sophisticated analyses to non-technical audiences.

• Full proficiency in Portuguese and English.

WBG Culture Attributes:

1. Sense of urgency: Anticipate and quickly respond to the needs of internal and external stakeholders.
2. Thoughtful risk-taking: Challenge the status quo and push boundaries to achieve greater impact.
3. Empowerment and accountability: Empower yourself and others to act and hold each other accountable for results.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Learn more about working at the World Bank and IFC, including our values and inspiring stories.