I was saddened to learn earlier this week of the passing of the Australian economist Martin Ravallion on 24 December last year. Ravallion was probably best known as research director at the World Bank up until 2013, and was more recently a professor at Georgetown University. His main areas of research were the economics of poverty and inequality, and it is in that context where I got to read a lot of his work, especially as I was working on my PhD thesis (on the links between poverty and HIV/AIDS in Northeast Thailand.
My students in the late 2000s and early 2010s got a big dose of Ravallion, as I assigned many of his readings to my graduate development economics class, when I was teaching at that level. In particular, he was a key contributor to debates on the use of the $1 per day global extreme poverty line, which all of my students from that class will have gotten very familiar with. Sadly, after giving up teaching development economics, I didn't have much occasion to read some of his more recent research. However, I have referenced Ravallion's work a couple of times on this blog (here and here).
I haven't noticed a good obituary in any of the usual locations. However, Berk Ozler and David McKenzie have a great post on the Development Impact blog, reflecting on Ravallion's interactions with them. David Evans has reviewed Ravallion's broad research contributions on the CGD Blog. Ravallion was ranked in the top 100 economists, and the top development economist, by RePEc. He had a number of students, interns, and colleagues who have contributed greatly to development economics as well. His legacy will clearly go on for some time. He will be missed.
[HT: Marginal Revolution]
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