Emily Gustafsson-Wright

Emily Gustafsson-Wright is a senior fellow in the Center for Universal Education. She specializes in applied microeconomic and policy research within the fields of education, health, and early childhood development (ECD) in low- and middle-income country contexts including examining the constraints around financing, capacity, quality of services, and political support.

She is widely recognized as a global expert on innovative financing mechanisms including public-private partnerships, payment by results, and social and development impact bonds. She has written over a dozen publications, teaches a course on this cutting-edge topic, and is regularly invited to contribute to high-level global conversations to share her research.

In addition, she has led the Childhood Cost Data initiative at Brookings since 2014 with the goal of increasing the volume, quality and use of cost evidence in the education and ECD sector. This has included developing the Standardized ECD Costing Tool (SECT) and its successor, the Childhood Cost Calculator (C3) a free, user-friendly tool for cost analysis of programs and interventions for children and youth across sectors including education, health, nutrition, water and sanitation, social protection, and governance. In 2025, she launched the Global Costing Taskforce for Education and Early Childhood Education and Care which aims to garner commitment among key actors and develop resources and a community of practice to help generate adequate and consistent cost data across the sector. 

With over 25 years of experience in development, her previous professional experience includes working at the World Bank, the UNICEF Innocenti Research Center, and the Amsterdam Institute for International Development. She holds a doctoral degree in economics from the Tinbergen Institute at the University of Amsterdam, as well as a Master of Science in applied economics and finance and a Bachelor of Arts in global economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Gustafsson-Wright has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and contributed to several books in her field and has been cited in the media including in the Economist, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times. She currently serves on various advisory committees and sits on the board of directors for an impact-focused nonprofit organization, Metrics for Management.