Martin Ravallion (19 March 1952 – 24 December 2022) was an Australian economist. He was the inaugural Edmond D. Villani Professor of Economics at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

, and had previously been director of the research department at the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

. He held a PhD in economics from the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

Life and career

Ravallion researched extensively on

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

in developing countries and on policies for fighting poverty. In 1990 he proposed what has come to be known as the "$1 a day"

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, and since then he and his colleagues at the World Bank monitored progress against global poverty by this and other measures. A paper he wrote in 2012 became the basis of the

, and subsequently

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

, development goal of eliminating

extreme poverty Extreme poverty is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, ...

in the world by 2030. He advised numerous governments and international agencies, and wrote five books and 250 papers in scholarly journals, as well as editing several volumes. His book ''The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy'' was published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

in January 2016. Based on publications and citations, Ravallion is regularly ranked in the top 10 development economists in the world and was ranked number 1 globally in the field of Development Economics by RePEc/IDEAS. He is ranked in the top 100 economists in all fields. He was a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a senior fellow of the Bureau for Research in Economic Analysis of Development, a non-resident fellow of the Center for Global Development, and ex-president of the society for the Study of Economic Inequality. In 2011 he received the John Kenneth Galbraith Award from the American Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. He won the 2015 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Development Cooperation for his groundbreaking work on defining the extreme poverty threshold with internationally applicable standards that facilitate the establishment of specific development cooperation goals. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in economics from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Ravallion died on 24 December 2022, at the age of 70.

Selected bibliography

Books

* * * * *

Chapters in books

* * * * * *

References

External links

Georgetown University profileEconomics & Poverty - Martin Ravallion's Website on the Economics of Poverty
1952 births 2022 deaths Australian economists Center for Global Development Development economists Georgetown University faculty World Bank Chief Economists World Bank people {{economist-stub