Vasco Molini
Associate Expert
Vasco Molini leads the design, implementation, and results management of the 50×2030 initiative. This initiative aims to increase the capacity of 50 low and lower middle-income countries to produce, analyze, interpret, and apply data to decisions in the agricultural sector that support rural development and food security. In his previous role, Vasco was a Senior Economist at the World Bank, specialized in issues related to wellbeing and statistical capacity building. Over the course of more than one decade with the Bank, he worked in Mozambique, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, where he led country level dialogues on jobs, poverty reduction and conflicts; and managed country-level statistical capacity building initiatives. Vasco has also published on these topics in various international peer-reviewed journals. Prior to joining the World Bank, Vasco worked as researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam where he led research projects on household vulnerability to shocks, food security and nutrition, and on weather and price insurance for poor farmers. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Florence and a Post-Doc from the Free University of Amsterdam.
Current affiliation:
World Bank
Selected Publications:
Recent publications on Sub Saharan Africa
Clementi F., Fabiani M., Molini V., Zizzamia R. Are We Really Painting the Devil on the Walls? Polarization and Its Drivers in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Past Two Decades
(2022) Journal of African Economies, 31 (2), pp. 124 – 146
Clementi F., Dabalen A.L., Molini V., Schettino F. We forgot the middle class! Inequality underestimation in a changing Sub-Saharan Africa (2020) Journal of Economic Inequality, 18 (1), pp. 45 – 70
Clementi F., Fabiani M., Molini V. The Devil is in the Detail: Growth, Inequality and Poverty Reduction in Africa in the Last Two Decades
(2019) Journal of African Economies, 28 (4), pp. 408 – 434
Alfani F., Dabalen A., Fisker P., Molini V. Vulnerability to stunting in the West African Sahel (2019) Food Policy, 83, pp. 39 – 47
Bertoni E., Di Maio M., Molini V., Nisticò R.
Education is forbidden: The effect of the Boko Haram conflict on education in North-East Nigeria (2019) Journal of Development Economics, 141, art. no. 102249
Recent publications on the Maghreb region
Alfani F., Molini V., Pallante G., Palma A. Job displacement and reallocation failure. Evidence from climate shocks in Morocco (2024) European Review of Agricultural Economics, 51 (1), pp. 1 – 31
Clementi F., Molini V., Schettino F., Khan H.A., Fabiani M. Polarization and its discontents: Morocco before and after the Arab Spring (2023) Journal of Economic Inequality, 21 (1), pp. 105 – 129
Alfani F., Clementi F., Fabiani M., Molini V., Valentini E. Once NEET, always NEET? A synthetic panel approach to analyze the Moroccan labor market.
(2023) Review of Development Economics, 27 (4), pp. 2401 – 2437
Di Maio M., Leone Sciabolazza V., Molini V. Migration in Libya: A spatial network analysis (2023) World Development, 163, art. no. 106139
2021 “Morocco’s Jobs Landscape: Identifying Constraints to an Inclusive Labor Market” https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/978-1-4648-1678-9