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E T Consultant - Water Economist
Washington, DC, US·Posted yesterday
Full job description
At the World Bank, a member of the World Bank Group (WBG), you’ll join a diverse, global community working across cultures, disciplines, and borders to address the world’s most pressing development challenges. With 1.2 billion young people reaching working age in the decade ahead, the challenge of job creation has never been greater. Through partnerships across 145 countries and more than 182 offices worldwide, we work with governments, private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to invest in people, strengthen markets, and deliver scalable, data-driven solutions that generate more and better jobs and improve lives. For more information, visit https://www.worldbank.org/en/who-we-are/ibrd
Objective: The ETC2 Economist will strengthen the Water Knowledge Bank’s empirical and policy-analytical capacity. The economist will produce credible, policy-relevant evidence on water-sector regulation, tariff and subsidy reform, utility performance, affordability and financial sustainability, as well as the broader economics of water allocation, investment, and institutional reforms. The economist will also help convert analytical findings into flagship reports, actionable guidance, and operational tools for client countries and World Bank Group regional teams.
Expected Deliverables and Results:
• Reproducible empirical analyses and analytical products, supported by well-documented data, code, methods, and robustness checks.
• High-quality inputs to reports, policy notes, and operational products, including country and cross-country assessments of key water-sector economic and regulatory issues.
• Input to analytical tools, datasets, visualizations, guidance, and templates that support operational and policy decision-making.
• Timely responses to agreed requests for operational and analytical support.
Specific deliverables, milestones, and timelines will be agreed through an annual work program and reviewed periodically with the practice manager and supervisor.
Technical Skills:
• Excellent command of econometrics and applied microeconomic methods
• Proficiency in at least one statistical programming package such as Stata, R, or Python.
• Demonstrated ability to manage, merge, validate, and analyze large and complex datasets.
• Experience with GIS, spatial econometrics, remote-sensing data, or spatial models is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of tariff modeling, cost-of-service analysis, regulatory benchmarking, affordability analysis, microsimulation, or utility financial modeling is highly desirable.
• Ability to communicate complex quantitative findings through clear graphics, maps, and presentations.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English; proficiency in another language relevant to World Bank Group operations is an asset.
Duties and accountabilities:
A. Applied Empirical Research and Data Analysis
• Design and implement rigorous empirical analyses using household, utility, firm, administrative, fiscal, and geospatial data.
• Apply advanced econometric methods, including panel-data analysis and causal inference approaches using quasi-experimental and other credible identification strategies.
• Apply spatial econometric and geospatial methods where relevant to analyze geographic variation and spatial dimensions of water-sector outcomes.
• Develop clear visualizations, maps, tables, and analytical code that meet high standards of transparency and replicability.
B. Regulatory Economics, Tariffs, and Utility Performance
• Analyze regulatory and institutional frameworks and the design and implementation of economic instruments across water supply and sanitation, irrigation, and water resources management, including tariffs and user charges, abstraction and pollution charges, subsidies, water rights and allocation mechanisms, and other incentive-based instruments.
• Assess pricing, tariff, subsidy, and other reform options against objectives of economic efficiency, financial sustainability, and affordability and equity, taking account of institutional and political-economy conditions.
• Evaluate the distributional, fiscal, and performance implications of water-sector policies and reforms, including distributional impacts across income groups, users, sectors, and assess appropriate mechanisms for affordability, subsidy targeting, and social protection.
C. Knowledge Products and Operational Support
• Contribute to flagship reports, policy notes, country diagnostics, and operational guidance. Support the development and refinement of standardized analytical tools, methodologies, and scalable solutions related to regulation, tariffs, subsidies, and utility performance.
• Contribute to the preparation of high-quality analytical reports, including developing report narrative, synthesizing quantitative and qualitative evidence, drafting and revising substantive chapters, integrating peer-review comments, and producing publication-ready outputs for technical and senior policy audiences.
• Translate analytical findings into concise, actionable recommendations for governments, private investors, and development partners.
• Provide just-in-time analytical support to regional and country teams, including data diagnostics, tariff and affordability analysis, regulatory assessments, and inputs to project design and implementation.
D. Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
• Work collaboratively with economists, water specialists, engineers, financial specialists, social inclusion, and operational teams across the World Bank Group.
• Present work at seminars, workshops, clinics, and knowledge-exchange events and respond constructively to peer review. Contribute to team learning.
Listing sourced from World Bank Group careers. Applications are handled entirely by the employer.
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