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Michael Woolcock

Lead Social Scientist, Development Economics

Michael Woolcock is Lead Social Scientist in the World Bank's Development Research Group, where he was worked since 1998. For sixteen of these years he has also been an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. His research focuses on strategies for enhancing state capability for implementation, on crafting more effective interaction between informal and formal justice systems, and on using mixed methods to better understand the effectiveness of "complex" development interventions. In addition to more than 100 journal articles and book chapters, he is the co-author or co-editor of thirteen books, including (with Patrick Barron and Rachael Diprose; Yale University Press 2011 ¨C a co-recipient of the 2012 best book prize by the American Sociological Association's section on international development), (with Matt Andrews and Lant Pritchett; Oxford University Press 2017), and co-lead author (with Samuel Freije-Rodriquez) of the World Bank¡¯s . He was the Von Hugel Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge (2002), a founding member of the Brooks World Poverty Institute (now the Global Development Institute) at the University of Manchester (2006-2009) and of the World Bank¡¯s first Global Knowledge and Research Hub, in Malaysia (2015-2017). An Australian national, he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Queensland, and has an MA and PhD in comparative-historical sociology from Brown University.


Featured Research
  • The Easy Part of Development Is Over (and the Easy Part Wasn't Actually That Easy)

    Story (September 2017)
    Recent successes at reducing extreme poverty mean countries must now tackle increasingly complex tasks to sustain their momentum. Building state capability will be the defining challenge for development in the decades to come.
  • Matt Andrews, Lant Pritchett, and Michael Woolcock
    This 2017 book presents clear, evidence-based analysis of development failures and explains why development failures persist. It¡¯s not just a critique; it offers a way of doing things differently. Readers can use the tools presented to personalize and apply these ideas to their own context. Open Access (Free Download)
Contact
Tel : +1 202 473 8068
mwoolcock@worldbank.org
RESEARCHER WEBSITE


AREAS OF EXPERTISE
  • Poverty
  • Community-Driven Development