Federica Saliola is an Advisor and Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice, which leads the institution’s dialogue on private sector development and financial sector policies. Prior to that, she was the Manager of the Jobs Group in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank. Prior to that, she was a Lead Economist in the Jobs Group, and the co-Director of the World Development Report 2019 on The Changing Nature of Work, which investigates the impact of technology on labor markets.
Federica has led several policy papers and reports, including the upcoming Jobs Flagship that aims to provide operational guidance to support countries in their pursuit of job-rich structural transformation in a post-COVID world. She has recently led the Jobs after Covid position paper, and the Jobs Undone: Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in the Middle East and North Africa report (her blogs). She has published in peer-reviewed journals, including studies on firm productivity, global value chains, and the impact of regulation on growth and competition. Under her intellectual leadership, several World Bank global reports have been published since 2014, including the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (2015, 2016, and 2017), Benchmarking Public procurement (2015, 2016, and 2017), and Procuring Infrastructure PPPs (2015, 2017, and 2018). She has also contributed to a number of World Bank reports, including the Environment for Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa Region; Golden Growth: Restoring the Luster of the European Economic Model; the Jobs Study - Assessing Private Sector Contributions to Job Creation and Poverty Reduction; and the Turkey Investment Climate Assessment: from Crisis to Private Sector Led Growth.
From 2019 to 2023, Ms. Saliola managed the Jobs Umbrella Multi-Donors Trust Fund (MDTF), which is an integrated, cross cutting facility that finances 103 grants in 40 countries. In that context, she led the first program that supports the integration of jobs effects into development lending policies and interventions across the World Bank Group.
From 2013 to 2017, Ms. Saliola was a Manager in the World Bank Development Economics Global Indicators Group. In that role, she was responsible for developing global programs with a focus on policies and regulations across several thematic areas, including agribusiness, skills, information and communication technology, public procurement, and PPPs.
She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Rome III and a Laurea in Political Science from the University of Rome, la Sapienza.