Lead Economist

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. 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, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. 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. 

• The World Bank Group’s Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice (FCI) combines expertise in the financial sector and private sector development to foster private-sector led growth and help create stable, resilient and inclusive markets in client countries.
• The Markets, Competition & Technology (ETIMT) unit in the Trade, Investment and Competitiveness (TIC) Department is a team of microeconomists, industry specialists and development practitioners. The unit focuses on a thorough understanding of the industrial organization of markets with the objective of removing economic distortions to promote competitive, contestable, innovative and inclusive markets and thus boost productivity growth.
• The unit’s goal is to provide cutting-edge, evidence-based advice to developing countries around the globe on policies to level the playing field and promote competitive and contestable markets, competition, product market regulation as well as non-distortive industry and sectoral development policies (including green competitiveness).

The responsibilities of the ETIMT unit include:

• Provide intellectual leadership on issues and policies to support competitive markets, competition, including Business of the State and SOEs, and the development and upgrading of productive, sustainable and resilient value chains in order to apply analytical frameworks in the regions, support policy dialogue, and inform bank operations development.
• Support client countries by delivering lending operations and technical assistance projects in the ETIMT areas of expertise, in collaboration with FCI and other World Bank Group’s regional units.
• Create global knowledge on frontier topics in the field of industrial organization.
• Facilitate knowledge diffusion and adoption of good practices in areas of expertise through policy dialogue, analytical and advisory work, including leading the design and implementation of empirical quantitative structural IO assessments and impact evaluations with a focus on randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
• Support World Bank Group senior management through briefings, guidance notes, and other inputs to inform and shape the WBG institutional strategy on ETIMT areas of expertise.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• The ideal candidate is expected to demonstrate strong conceptual and analytical skills, significant experience, in-depth knowledge and understanding of the unit’s pillars, excellent leadership, and mentorship skills. Knowledge and experience with production of analytics that lead to successful policy dialogue, reforms and operations would be essential.
• S/he will need to demonstrate a strong background in conducting Value Chain (VC) analyses. The role will involve intellectual leadership to define an analytical framework for value chains including diagnose of market or government failures and recommend policies or pathways to mitigate these issues while considering the broader political economy context. Additionally, the successful candidate will lead operationalization of VC analyses within World Bank Group operations, ensuring that our initiatives effectively promote sustainability, economic viability, and social responsibility.
• S/he will be a member of the ETIMT Team, working closely with specialists in the unit under the general guidance of the ETIMT Practice Manager (PM). The candidate will lead a team and mentor staff, create opportunities for engagement with clients and regions, and engage with senior management. The selected candidate will also liaise with other units and other parts of the Bank, including on green value chains and decarbonization of industry, job creation and skills, agriculture, transport and logistics, finance, etc.
• S/he will be a motivated and dynamic professional, with solid analytic skills and policy-relevant experience, expertise in market and firm-level dynamics, industrial organization and applied research, excellent client engagement, and team spirit skills, working as part of the ETIMT unit and in collaboration with other FCI global and regional teams.

The key responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

• Quality & Knowledge, Clients and Delivery.
• Quality control of unit’s Global Engagement knowledge generated including Flagships, under ETIMT PM guidance.
• Provide intellectual and technical leadership to expand and refine the WBG’s analytical and policy approach to support the development and upgrading of productive, sustainable, and resilient value chains and industrial ecosystems (for products and services) considering new business models for green transition.
• Responsible for knowledge management, learning and innovation in the sustainable value chains and industrial ecosystems area integrating policy, regulatory, market power, and business development aspects.
• Lead teams and consultants, in coordination with technical staff, on the production and/or quality assurance of outputs, including diagnostic analysis, empirical findings, policy recommendations, case studies, synthesis reports and other outputs, consistent with client expectations.
• As a Key Pillar (KP) Leader will lead work related to KP knowledge management, research, and analysis (including of selected policy and regulatory issues) in support of the global KP solution development, helping to generate new analytics and disseminate toolkits, case studies, databases and other materials on relevant topics and themes.
• Represent the unit in the value chains area in cross GP knowledge projects.
• Play a lead role as member of ETIMT core team and ensure optimal client response, coordinate knowledge generation and dissemination of relevant KP good practices and lessons learned on KP across countries and regions.
• Play a lead role in client discussions and liaison with respect to the development of KP ensuring rapid client response and high-quality design of WB projects.

Strategy:

• Identify trends in need & demand in the KP area.
• Work closely with ETIMT PM in the development of internal and external partnerships.
• Support ETIMT and TIC Leadership in setting strategic direction of the Practice.
• Build an effective Community of Practice within TIC and the WBG.
• In close coordination with the Practice Manager, represent ETIMT in external fora of KP and related topics.
• Promote inter-TIC collaboration and knowledge sharing, along with Regional Cross-Support Leads
• Support the coordination across KP topics with other KP leaders and ETIMT including its economic underpinnings, its relevance for sectoral and economy-wide policies, its impact on economic variables, and tools for its effective implementation on the ground.

Resource Management and Team Building:

• Build and support supervision of a cohesive, open, collaborative and high-performing KP team, under the guidance of ETIMT PM.
• Mentor staff with emerging expertise in the KP area & support staff learning. Mentor technical teams, junior staff and GP affiliates, to conduct analytical work on respective pillar and to support projects on the ground.
• Support ETIMT PM in talent management & professional development of staff.

Selection Criteria

• Ph.D. or Master’s degree in economics or related field with at least twelve (12) years of relevant professional experience, including a track record of delivery of high quality analytical and advisory products. Ph.D. in Economics (a plus) or extensive specialization in industrial organization, economic development and technological change and applied microeconomics.
• Recognized expertise and delivery in value chain and industrial ecosystems analyses to identify gaps and recommendations to influence policy discussions at the country level on specific policies, regulatory interventions, public and private investments, and other interventions to deliver on productivity, sustainability, resilience, and inclusion. Knowledge of related areas (e.g., trade, industrial policy, competition policy, firm dynamics, environmental sustainability, and climate change) and experience in industrial organization analysis and empirical analysis of micro foundations of growth policies.
• Strong track record of delivery of innovative knowledge products with impact on the ground. Demonstrated knowledge and skills to develop and lead intellectual thinking and contributions to growing agendas in areas of green growth and climate resilience, digital economy, among others.
• Demonstrated track record of delivering high quality analytical work that support lending operations (including development policy loans), including complex operations, and a track record of publications.
• Demonstrated experience in leading key Private Sector Development flagships, core analytical work and technical assistance.
• Demonstrated client orientation through identifying and evaluating emerging opportunities aligned with WBG strategy, and challenging others to remove barriers and to deliver beyond client expectations. Excellent client engagement skills and experience able to understand and adapt to client needs.
• Demonstrated integrative capacity including the ability to situate sectoral issues within a broader development framework, as well as work with CMUs and in teams (within EFI, FCI and cross GP/IFC).
• Demonstrated track record to work across institutional boundaries.
• Demonstrated ability to lead the design and implementation of projects, and present findings and solutions with credibility and for different type of audiences.
• Having a balanced and strategic approach; creativity and resilience; problem solving attitude and growth mindset; excellent listening skills.
• Ability to collaborate with peers and mentor senior and junior staff to ensure high quality delivery within demanding time schedule. Ability to work with diverse personalities and backgrounds and versed in senior-level client interactions.
• Ability to work flexibly on a range of assignments and adjust to a variety of complex evolving tasks to meet deadlines. Ability to strategize and adapt work programs based on changing and evolving priorities. Ability to understand and analyze complex policy problems and develop innovative approaches.
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including the ability to present complex analyses to non-specialist audiences.
• Strong client-orientation and diplomatic skills combined with candor and courage of opinion.
• Fluency in English is essential, and capacity in other widely used languages (e.g. Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish) is desired.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=28206&site=1