Nora Lustig
Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics
- General Latin America
Biography
Nora Lustig is Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics and the founding Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ) at Tulane University. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue. Professor Lustig’s research is on economic development, inequality and social policies with emphasis on Latin America. Among her recent publications, the Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty is a step-by-step guide to assessing the impact of taxation and social spending on inequality and poverty in developing countries. Prof. Lustig is a founding member and President Emeritus of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) and was a co-director of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000, Attacking Poverty. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Inequality and is a member of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality’s Executive Council. Prof. Lustig served on the Atkinson Commission on Poverty, the High-level Group on Measuring Economic Performance and Social Progress, and the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance. She received her doctorate in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
The Commitment to Equity handbook (2nd edition), edited by our own Nora Lustig, has just been published. It is a unique manual on the theory and practical methods for determining the impact of taxation and public spending on inequality and poverty. In Volume 1 - Fiscal Incidence Analysis: Methodology, Implementation, and Applications, policymakers, social planners, and economists are provided with a step-by-step guide to applying fiscal incidence analysis illustrated by country studies as well as the required software and a comprehensive set of key indicators and data housed in the CEQ Data Center on Fiscal Redistribution. Volume 2 - Methodological Frontiers in Fiscal Incidence Analysis includes a collection of chapters on alternative approaches to value in-kind education and health services; alternative methods to evaluate spending on infrastructure; corporate taxes and taxation on capital incomes; the redistributive consequences of social insurance pensions; the sustainability of fiscal redistribution; and, political economy of redistributive fiscal policy.
Courses
Additional Info
Recent Research Grants:
• Principal Investigator – Title: Measuring Fiscal Equity in the post-COVID-19 World. Donor: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Amount: $1,182,000. Duration: May 1, 2021-March 31, 2023. (With Ludovico Feoli as a Co-PI).
• Principal Investigator – Title: Investments in Growth and Shared Prosperity: The Fiscal Incidence and Welfare Distribution of Eliminating Constraints to Growth (September 30, 2020-March 31, 2023). Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Amount: $449,956. (With Ludovico Feoli as a Co-PI)
• Principal Investigator – Title: CEQ Institute Data Center on Fiscal Policy, Poverty, and Inequality (May 1, 2018-April 30, 2020; extended to April 2022). National Science Foundation. Amount: $241,814. (With Sean Higgins as a co-PI)
• Principal Investigator – Title: Commitment to Equity Institute: Research and Policy Tools, Data Center and Advisory and Training on Fiscal Policy (November 2015-October 2020). Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Amount: US $4,933,201. Duration: November 2015-October 2020.
Number of Dissertations or Theses Supervised in the Past 5 Years: 5
Research
Development Economics, Poverty and Income Distribution, Social Policies and Protection, Globalization, Mexico
Degrees
- Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley, 1979
- M.A., University of California-Berkeley, Economics, 1974
- B.A., University of California-Berkeley, Economics, 1972
Academic Experience
- Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics, Tulane University, 2009-
- Resident Fellow, Georgetown Americas Institute, Georgetown University (2023-)
- Non-resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Center for Global Development, Inter-American Dialogue, Washington DC. 2009-
- Visiting Professor, Universidad Torcuato DiTella, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2016
- Visiting Researcher, Paris School of Economics, 2016 and 2017
- J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Visiting Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University, 2008
- President and Professor of Economics, Universidad de las Américas, Puebla, Mexico, 2001-2005
- Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Program, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1989-1997
- Professor, Center for Economic Studies, El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City, 1975–1991
Distinctions
- Tulane University Innovation Award, November 2021.
- President, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ), 2023-2025.
- President Emerita, Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA), November 2017.
- Lawrence M v D Schloss Prize for Excellence in Research, Department of Economics, Tulane University, September 2016.
- Tulane University School of Liberal Arts Outstanding Research Award, May 2012.
Languages
- Spanish
- French
- German
- Portuguese
Overseas Experience
- Mexico
- France
- Argentina
- India
Selected Publications
- 2022. Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty. Second Edition. Volumes 1 and 2. Brookings Institution Press, 2022 (edited by Nora Lustig)
- 2022. Finding the Upper Tail, Special Issue: Journal of Economic Inequality, 20(1). March 2022. (with F. Cowell and D. Waldenström) https://link.springer.com/journal/10888/volumes-and-issues/20-1
- 2023. Short and Long-Run Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in Latin America. Economía LACEA Journal 22(1): 96–116, 2023. (With V. Martinez Pabon, G. Neidhöfer and M. Tommasi). DOI: https://doi.org/10.31389/eco.3
- 2023. The Pink Tide and Inequality in Latin America, forthcoming. Latin American Politics and Society, Volume 65 , Issue 2 , May 2023 , pp. 110–144. (with G. Feierherd, P. Larroulet and Wei Long). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/lap.2022.47
- 2023. Lustig, Nora, V. Martinez Pabon, F. Sanz and S.D. Younger. 2023. “The Impact of COVID-19 on Living Standards...” International Journal of Microsimulation, 16(1), 1-27. DOI: https://doi.org/10.34196/ijm.00273
- 2023. Universal Basic Income Programs: How Much Would Taxes Need to Rise? …, Journal of Development Studies, 2023, Vol. 59, issue 9, pp. 1443-1463. (With Ali Enami, Ugo Gentilini, P. Larroulet, E. Monsalve, S. Quan, and J. Rigolini).
- 2023. Are Budget Neutral Income Floors Fiscally Viable in Sub-Saharan Africa? Journal of African Economies, Volume 32, Issue Supplement_2, April 2023, ii202–ii227. (Lead author, with Jon Jellema and V. Martinez Pabon). https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejac049
- 2023. The Rich Underreport their Income: Assessing Bias in Inequality Estimates and Correction Methods...Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 69, Issue 4: 1033-1059, 2023. Version of Record Online October 11, 2022. (with E. Flachaire and A. Vigorito).
- 2022. Wage inequality in the developing world: Evidence from Latin America, Review of Development Economics, 26(4), 1944-1970. (with C. Rodriguez-Castelan (lead author), L.F. Lopez-Calva, N. Lustig and D. Valderrama) November 2022.
- 2022. Universal Basic Income, Taxes, and the Poor, LSE Public Policy Review, Vol. 2, Issue 4, November, 2022. (with V. Martinez Pabon). https://ppr.lse.ac.uk/9/volume/2/issue/4/
- 2022. How Accurate is the Kakwani Index in Predicting Whether a Tax or a Transfer is Equalizing?..., Journal of Income Distribution, Volume 31, Numbers 3-4: September-December 2022. (with Ali Enami and P. Larroulet).
- 2021. Intergenerational Transmission of Lockdown Consequences: Prognosis of the Longer-run Persistence of COVID-19 in Latin America. Journal of Economic Inequality, July 31, 2021. (with G. Neidhöfer (lead author) and M. Tommasi).
