Economist

Economist

Description

At the World Bank, a member of the World Bank Group (WBG), you’ll join a diverse, global community working across cultures, disciplines, and borders to address the world’s most pressing development challenges. With 1.2 billion young people reaching working age in the decade ahead, the challenge of job creation has never been greater. Through partnerships across 145 countries and more than 182 offices worldwide, we work with governments, private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to invest in people, strengthen markets, and deliver scalable, data-driven solutions that generate more and better jobs and improve lives. For more information, visit https://www.worldbank.org/en/who-we-are/ibrd

Within this architecture, the Prosperity vertical helps countries accelerate inclusive growth and job creation; strengthen macro-fiscal foundations, including debt sustainability, debt management, domestic resource mobilization, and expenditure efficiency; promote a resilient and inclusive financial sector, business-enabling policies and regulations, and trade facilitation; while advancing transparent, effective, accountable institutions. The Distributional Impact of Policies (DIP) unit in the Fiscal Policy and Growth (FPG) Department focuses on integrating distributional analysis of reforms and investments into operational knowledge and lending and comprises applied microeconomists, statisticians, data scientists, and social and behavioral scientists who support WBG teams and governments to ensure that WBG interventions and country policies and programs reduce poverty and inequality in a sustainable manner.

The South Asia DIP unit supports poverty and equity work across six countries with many challenges and opportunities. They are at different stages of economic development, but all share the common goal of eliminating extreme poverty and reducing inequality. The Bangladesh poverty and equity program offers a work program encompassing (a) poverty monitoring and diagnostics, improving the measurement, monitoring, and understanding of the drivers of poverty and equity, the evolution of labor markets and economic activity, sources of vulnerability, and multidimensional welfare measures; (b) related analytics; (c) technical assistance and policy-related technical support; and (d) related operational and lending work.

Duties and Accountabilities:

The SAR DIP unit is seeking an Economist to join the team, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Economist will anchor the day-to-day engagement with government counterparts and the country team and will have the following duties:

• Lead and contribute to analytical work on poverty alleviation, equity, spatial, gender, labor markets, and micro-fiscal issues, including diagnostics of mobility, vulnerability, and multidimensional poverty.

• Provide technical and policy advice to country and sectoral teams on poverty and equity, and support the design and implementation of operations and Development Policy Financing, including poverty and social impact analysis.

• Engage directly with the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), line ministries, and development partners on the measurement, monitoring, and communication of poverty, equity, and gender trends, including capacity building, and support the implementation of the Strengthening Institutions for Transparency and Accountability (SITA) project (P506691) with BBS.

• Analyze the distributional impact of fiscal, social, and other sector policies and investments, and deliver just-in-time analytics in response to country team and client requests.

• Support the development of statistical public goods and initiatives for data sharing and analysis, and contribute to the regional and global knowledge base of the practice.

Selection Criteria

• Masters degree in Economics, Statistics or other related field, with a strong quantitative background and programming skills, and at least five years of relevant professional experience.

Other Selection Criteria:

• Strong foundation in applied development microeconomics and statistical modeling: designing, implementing, and analyzing household surveys, administrative data, and performing complex econometric analysis.

• Prior experience in at least three of the following areas:

–Survey-to-survey imputation methods used to generate welfare estimates in data-scarce environments.
–Applied micro econometrics, including distributional analysis and decomposition methods, relevant to assessing policy implications for welfare outcomes.
–Welfare measurement methodologies, poverty line construction, and the analysis of household survey data.
–World Bank Group Operational and Policy lending Instruments.

• Track record of delivering analytical products: policy notes, technical papers, or reports that translate technical findings into policy-relevant guidance for government counterparts and operational teams.

• Demonstrated ability to engage with government counterparts, statistical agencies, and development partners, and to build and sustain effective working relationships.

• Ability to work independently, exercise sound judgment, and take initiative with minimal supervision while remaining aligned with team objectives and country priorities.

• Flexibility and adaptability in a fast-paced environment where priorities may shift rapidly; ability to manage multiple deliverables simultaneously and meet tight deadlines.

• Strong communication skills: ability to present technical findings and policy implications clearly to senior management, policymakers, and the public, and to produce well-structured written outputs.

• Superb interpersonal skills; ability to collaborate effectively with multi-disciplinary teams and to listen to and integrate ideas from diverse sources, governments, NGOs, and donors, while being respectful and sensitive to cultural, political, and gender issues.

• Ability to work with staff from all levels and to mentor, coach, and motivate more junior staff.

• Excellent communications skills in Bangla.

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.