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Ambar Narayan
Ambar Narayan leads and advises teams conducting policy analyses, evaluations, and research in development from a microeconomic perspective. Topics that he works on include inequality of opportunity, economic mobility, policy evaluation, structural and spatial transformation, and the welfare impacts of economic shocks. He has been a lead author for several large World Bank reports, which include a recent global study on intergenerational mobility; and studies on inequality of opportunity in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Africa; on poverty and inequality in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India; and on welfare impacts of the financial crisis in developing countries. He has co-authored several academic publications and working papers, which reflect the eclectic mix of topics he has worked on over the years. In the past, he has worked in the South Asia region of the World Bank on knowledge and lending programmes. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University in the US.
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In which countries do children have the best chances to surpass their parents' education?
Intergenerational mobility contributes to social stability and cohesion, and is associated with higher, more inclusive economic growth in the long-term. This article presents global trends in absolute intergenerational mobility, captured by the share of a generation that surpassed their parents in education. It shows that the global picture on absolute mobility is sobering, particularly for the developing world, as it has stopped rising at a much lower level of overall education attainment than in high-income economies.
Intergenerational mobility across the world: Where socioeconomic status of parents matters the most (and least)
Intergenerational mobility is important for fairness and economic efficiency in a society. This article uses data from a new global study spanning five decades to show that average relative mobility is lower in developing economies, with no sign of the gap with developed countries getting smaller. Also, income mobility in several developing economies is much lower than their levels of educational mobility would lead us to expect. Labour market deficiencies appear to be contributing to this gap between mobility in education and income.