Elizabeth M. King

Elizabeth M. King was formerly Director of Education (February 2009-June 2014), Vice President for Human Development (October 2013-June 2014), and Senior Education Adviser (July-August 2014) of the World Bank, Washington, DC.

In these positions, she was the World Bank’s senior spokesperson and professional head for global policy and strategic issues related to education development and human development. In 2010, she led the development of the World Bank Group’s education strategy for the next decade. Prior to these positions, she was the World Bank’s Research Manager for human development issues, Lead Economist for human development in the East Asian and Pacific region, and co-author of three World Development Reports, the flagship publication of the World Bank.

Currently, she is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. She has published on topics such as household investments in human capital; the linkages between education, poverty and economic development; gender issues in development, especially girls’ and women’s education; education finance, and the impact of decentralization reforms. She has worked on countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, and the Philippines, among others, contributing to public expenditure reviews, country economic assessments, policy analyses of the human development sectors, and impact evaluations of policies and programs. Ms. King has a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and a Master’s and BA from the University of the Philippines.