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Mr. Ratha is a Lead Economist in the Development Prospects Group of the World Bank. A recognized expert on migration, remittances, and innovative financing, he is the author of the article “Workers’ Remittances: An Important and Stable Source of External Development Finance,” a lead author of the World Bank flagship Global Economic Prospects 2006: Economic Implications of Remittances and Migration, and edited volumes Remittances: Development Impact and Future Prospects. According to a New York Times article, “No one has done more than Mr. Ratha to make migration and its potential rewards a top-of-the-agenda concern in the world’s development ministries.” He has advised many governments and played a leading role in international and inter-governmental forums including the Global Forum on Migration and Development, the G8 Global Remittances Working Group, and World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on migration. Reflecting his deep interest in financing development in poor countries, he recently edited Innovative Financing for Development featuring his work on shadow sovereign rating, diaspora bonds, and future-flow securitization. A sought-after speaker, he is frequently interviewed in leading TV, radio and print media. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as a regional economist for Asia at Credit Agricole Indosuez; an assistant professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; and an economist at the Policy Group, New Delhi. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi.
Sanket Mohapatra is an economist with the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank. His interest in development economics began during an internship at the Bank in 2002, when he co-authored a background paper on the determinants of capital inflows and outflows for the Global Development Finance report.
The following year, Sanket went on to co-author a chapter on corporate financing patterns for 2003 Global Development Finance report. In addition, he worked with faculty at Columbia University to explore the links between liberalization episodes and changes in poverty and inequality in several developing countries.
His research interests include international capital flows, sovereign and sub-sovereign ratings, poverty, inequality and growth, and the development impact of remittances and migration. Prior to his current assignment, he worked as an economist with the Africa Region of the International Monetary Fund. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia and a masters degree from the Delhi School of Economics. He currently lives in Arlington, Virginia.
Sonia Plaza is currently a Senior Economist in the Development Economics Prospect Group of the World Bank. She has worked on Science and Technology projects in Latin American and co-authored a major analytical survey of migration and development for the Africa region.
Sonia was born in Lima, Peru. Her father had a constructing firm, so some of her earliest childhood memories are of traveling with him to poor areas including Ayacucho where he was working on projects. This is how she was first exposed to development work, and it shaped her.
Sonia attended the University of Lima and earned a degree in Economics, after which she joined Chase Manhattan Bank, and was then invited to join the Peruvian Ministry of Trade as a manager responsible for counter trade and debt swap agreements. She also has a dual degree from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania in International Economics and Development.
Neil G. Ruiz is a Migration Specialist in the Development Prospects Group of the World Bank. His research reflects a deep interest in the relationship between migration, political institutions, and development. He has migration policy research experience as a research fellow at The Brookings Institution and as a consultant for the Asian Development Bank and the Migration Policy Institute. He is a first-generation American whose parent's migrated to the US from the Philippines. As part of his interest in migration, he returned to the Philippines on several occassions to spearhead several entrepreneurial initiatives in his parents’ home country with the Philippine Brain Gain Network to create an organization that linked MIT and Silicon Valley Filipinos to the Philippines to identify, mentor, and provide seed-funding for technology startups. Read more ...
Ani Silwal joined the Migration and Remittances team in March 2009. He received an MS in Applied Economics from the University of Maryland and a Bachelors in Economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College. He has worked on microfinance in Nepal on which he wrote his undergraduate thesis. He also previously worked as a financial analyst at Exelon Corporation.