Nora C. Lustig

Nora Lustig is J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Visiting Professor of International Relations at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. Previously she was the Director of the Poverty Group of the United Nations Development Programme. Dr. Lustig was President of the Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, Mexico and Professor of its Department of Economics; Senior Advisor and Chief of the Poverty and Inequality Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Studies Program of the Brookings Institution, and Professor at the Center of Economic Studies of the Colegio de Mexico. During her sabbaticals, Nora Lustig spent time as Visiting Scholar at MIT, Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the United Nations Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). She has been a member of the highest level of the Mexican National Researchers System. She is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences since 1987 and of several Boards of academic institutions and editorial committees and was President of the “Mexican Commission of Macroeconomics and Health”. Dr. Lustig was co-founder and President of LACEA, the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association. She has served in high-level search committees and was a co-panelist of the report “An Evaluation of World Bank Research” chaired by Professor Angus Deaton.

As a researcher, Lustig has focused on development economics with particular emphasis on the causes of poverty and inequality and the Mexican economy. Among her publications are: co-edited with Francois Bourguignon and Francisco Ferreira, The Microeconomics of Income Distribution Dynamics; Mexico. The Remaking of an Economy (Fondo de Cultura Economica and El Colegio de Mexico; (editor) Shielding the Poor; co-edited with Sebastian Edwards, Labor Markets in Latin America. Combining Social Protection with Market Flexibility; co-edited with Barry Bosworth and Susan Collins, Coming Together? Mexico-U.S. Relations; (editor), Coping with Austerity: Poverty and Inequality in Latin America. Nora Lustig was also co-Director of the World Bank’s 2000/2001 World Development Report “Attacking Poverty”. She has also published in many refereed journals.

Lustig has written many dissemination pieces and made numerous appearances in the electronic media. Her intellectual influence in policy circles is featured in the December 2005 issue of the IMF journal Finance and Development.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lustig has spent her adult life in Mexico and the United States. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.