Research Staff

Espen Villanger

Director

Current projects

Jun 2021 - May 2026

Jobs Network

Completed projects

Dec 2006 - Mar 2007

Arab foreign aid

Dec 2004 - Dec 2006

Bonded Labor in Nepal

Jan 2003 - Jun 2005

The effects of post-war aid

Jan 2005 - Apr 2005

Development aid - a fresh look

Journal Articles

Reports

CMI Working Papers

Economist working on violence against women, ethnic conflict, job creation, private sector development and poverty reduction.

Villanger is the Director at CMI. He has a long track record in impact evaluation and causal analysis in development. Villanger has worked on rigorous evaluations of interventions to reduce poverty, create jobs, empower women and efforts against intimate partner violence. He has published in journals such as the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Politics and the European Economc Review.

Villanger has been a team leader for a range of quantitative and qualitative evaluations and has several contributions to the aid effectiveness debate. Interested in the documentation of results of development efforts, Villanger has participated in several studies evaluating foreign aid systems. His geographical focus is on the poorest countries in the world, and has worked in Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, Namibia and Nepal.

He holds a Ph.D. from the Norwegian School of Economics, and has taught development economics at the University of Bergen.  Moreover, he worked as a Senior Economist for the World Bank in the Ethiopia Country Office from 2009 to 2012.

Most recent publications