Economic Rockstar

Shanta Devarajan is the Chief Economist of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region.  Since joining the World Bank in 1991, he has been a Principal Economist and Research Manager for Public Economics in the Development Research Group, and the Chief Economist of the Human Development Network, South Asia, and Africa Region. Shanta was the director of the World Development Report 2004, ‘Making Services Work for Poor People’. Before 1991, he was on the faculty of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Shanta is the author and co-author of over 100 publications, with his research covering public economics, trade policy, natural resources and the environment, and general equilibrium modeling of developing countries. Born in Sri Lanka, Shanta received his B.A. in Mathematics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, Berkeley. In this episode, you will learn: why Shanta decided to take a sabbatical from lecturing and never went back. about S