Monica Robayo-Abril

Monica Robayo-Abril

Senior Economist at the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank

The work of Monica Robayo-Abril focus on the intersection between poverty, inequality, and labor markets and the distributional impacts of policy reforms. Prior to that, her work has focused on energy subsidy and fiscal reforms, welfare measurement, gender policies, and inclusive labor markets. She has led analytical and advisory work on labor and migration policies in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regions. She has worked extensively on the distributional impacts of fiscal policy and gasoline and energy subsidy reforms in the South Caucasus, the Western Balkans, Central America, and Venezuela. She has also led several country and regional studies on gender and inclusion of ethnic minorities in the Western Balkans, the European Union, and Central America. She has experience designing and implementing large-scale household surveys and monitoring poverty in data-deprived environments. Monica is also part of the global team for the Poverty GP, supporting the practice's global knowledge base by developing and expanding labor simulation tools (SIMLAB) offered to countries interested in distribution-sensitive policy design. She has written and published numerous academic and policy papers and reports. She holds a Master of Science (MS) and a Ph.D. in Economics, both from Georgetown University.