Jean-Jacques is the Manager of the Research Services unit in the Development Economics Vice Presidency, at the World Bank. He has worked at the World Bank since 1985, both in Operations and in Research. He worked in Africa and the Middle East (for AGR) and for 10 years in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) where he was the Country Economist for Hungary and Croatia. He is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University where, he teaches a graduate course on development. He serves as a Senior Fellow at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he spent a year (1998-99) at the Centre for Development Research (ZEF). Prior to the Bank, he worked for ILO and was a consultant for USAID, FAO, IFAD and private consulting firms. He is a Belgian citizen and has lived for extended periods in Belgium, Germany, the UK, Peru, Egypt and the USA.
He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley (1985) and a law degree from the University of Liège, Belgium (1975). A widely published researcher, Jean-Jacques has also authored several books, including Growth and Empowerment. Making Development Happen, with Nick Stern and Halsey Rogers (MIT Press 2005); Governance, Decentralization and Reform in China, India and Russia (Kluwer 2000) and Public Finance Reform during the Transition (World Bank 1998).