Health Taxes: Policy and Practice

Ms. Chiara Bronchi is the Practice Manager for the Fiscal Policy and Sustainable Growth Unit in the Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice of the World Bank Group. She leads a group of macro-fiscal economists and tax experts, who work on fiscal policy, quality of spending and sustainable growth.

Chiara has over 26 years of professional experience in managing multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary programs gained in various international organizations. She started her professional career as Economic Adviser with the U.K. government, joined the OECD in 1998 as a Young Professional, and then the IMF in 2003. She served at the Head of the Fiscal Affairs Office of Kosovo under the UN Protectorate before joining the World Bank in 2008, where she has led lending operations, technical assistance, and knowledge products. In 2018-19 she was on external assignment as the Chief Thematic Officer of the ADB, where she provided vision and goals for the ADB thematic cluster and the ADB Strategy 2030.

She has published on taxation and public spending. Most recently, she has co-authored an approach paper for the Conclave of Ministers of Finance on financing Human Capital Development. Chiara holds a PhD in economics from Bologna University and a MSc in economics from University College of London.

Ceren Ozer is Senior Economist with the World Bank where her focus has been on supporting multilaterals’ collaboration on tax matters; and, taxation and SDGs. She program manages the Global Tax Program and the Platform for Collaboration on Tax. She works on Health Taxes and on the Medium-term Expenditure Frameworks. In her previous position, Ceren worked on operationalizing political economy insights to address constraints to reform and project implementation with multi-stakeholder engagement and coalition building approaches in nearly a dozen countries across all Bank regions. Throughout her Bank career, Ceren held various assignments with the Development Economics Research Group, PREM Economic Policy (now MTI), East and South Asia Regions as an economist. Ceren started her international career as a research assistant at the policy think-tank, the Center for Global Development (CGD) working on estimating impacts of global trade liberalization on global poverty. While at the CGD, Ceren co-authored the book A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform with Kemal Dervis focusing on reform of development practice and the United Nations system. She has done work towards a Ph.D. (stopped) in Political Economy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) (thesis advisor Francis Fukuyama); an M.A. in international relations, conflict management and international economics from SAIS, and a B.A. in economics from the Bogazici University.

Mr. Franco Sassi holds a Chair in International Health Policy and Economics and is the Director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Innovation. He is also on leave forom a Senior Health Economist position at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - OECD, Paris (on leave) - where he developed and was responsible for the Organisation's Public Health Programme. 

Franco's work has been aimed at assessing the impacts of public policies to tackle major chronic diseases and their predisposing risk factors, including poor nutrition, physical inactivity, alcohol and tobacco use, and a range of envronmental and social exposures. He is the author and editor of a large number of publications on economic aspects of public health, including the books “Obesity and the economics of prevention: Fit not fat”, in 2010. He has held other prior academic positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University of London, Université de Montréal, as well as visiting positions at a number of universities in the United States.

Dr. Frank J. Chaloupka is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois Chicago and the Director of Tobacconomics. At University of Illinois Chicago, he is also the Director of the Health Policy Center within the Institute for Health Research and Policy. For nearly 20 years, he was co-Director of Bridging the Gap: Research Informing Policies and Practices for Healthy Youth and founded and currently directs the Tobacconomics program. Frank’s research focuses on the effects of national, state, and local policies and other environmental influences on youth, young adult, and adult health behaviors, including cigarette smoking and other tobacco use, alcohol use, illicit drug use, physical activity, diet, and related outcomes. He also researches the broader economic impact of policies, including their effects on the macroeconomy, illicit trade, and economic and health inequities. Frank has authored over a hundred articles and several book chapters on topics within this area. 

Dr. Lisa M. Powell is a Distinguished Professor, Director in the Division of Health Policy and Administration and the Director of the Policy, Practice and Prevention Research Center School of Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago. Lisa has extensive experience as an applied micro-economist in the empirical analysis of the effects of public policy on a series of behavioral outcomes. Much of her current research is on assessing the importance of economic and environmental factors (such as food prices, sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes; access to food stores, fast-food restaurants, other eating places, and facilities for physical activity; and, television food advertising exposure) on food consumption and physical activity behaviors and as determinants of obesity, including related disparities. Her work has made substantial contributions to the evidence base for policymakers in the areas of SSB taxes and child-directed marketing.

Mr. Juan Pablo Uribe, MD, is the Global Director for Health Nutrition and Population at the World Bank and Director of the Global Financing Facility for Women Children and Adolescents (GFF). Previously, Mr. Uribe was the CEO of Healthcare Providers for United Healthcare/Banmédica for Chile and Peru and served from 2018 to 2019 as Minister of Health and Social Protection of Colombia. Prior to that, he was the Director General of the Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá, a leading organization in Colombia working in health care, health education and public health.  Between 2009 and 2011, he was the World Bank´s Health Sector Manager for East Asia and the Pacific. In his career, first as a medical doctor specializing in public health and public administration, and later in both public and private sector organizations, Mr. Uribe has contributed significantly to the development of public health, health systems and public policies. 

Mr. Norman Maldonado is the Director of PROESA, Research Center on Health Economics and Social Protection, at University ICESI. He holds a BSC, MSc and a PhD in Economics, and he is a specialist on health economics and development economics. As a Health Economist, Norman’s research focuses on the fields of economics of non-communicable diseases, risk factors and implications for health systems. He has conducted research primarily in the areas of economics of obesity and tobacco economics and health taxes, using microeconometrics, agent-based models and microsimulation. He also works on monitoring and evaluation of health and development policies, and works closely with policymakers in advancing the health policy agenda.

Mr. Marcello de Moura Estevão Filho is the Global Director of the World Bank Group’s Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice (MTI).

In this position, Mr. Estevão leads a large team of country economists, macroeconomists, and fiscal policy, debt, and macro-modeling experts. He is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the global analytical work on macroeconomics, fiscal policy, and debt policy; for coordinating the strategic direction of MTI and implementing it; for helping to shape and oversee MTI’s country/regional programs; and for mobilizing staff to work more effectively across Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions (EFI) and other Global Practices.

Before joining the Bank, Mr. Estevão was Deputy Minister for International Affairs at the Ministry of Finance in Brazil until end-December 2018 and served as Brazil’s G20 Deputy. He also served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New Development Bank (Shanghai) and member of FUNCEF’s Board of Directors. Prior to this position, he worked at Tudor Investment Corporation as the chief-economist for North America and Oceania; at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as mission chief to Peru, Nicaragua and Barbados, and deputy chief of the Regional Studies Division, the North American Division, and the Latin-Caribbean Division, after working on several European countries and the Euro Area; and at the Research and Statistics Division of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC, as a researcher and member of the Green Book forecast team.

Mr. Estevão holds a PhD in Economics from MIT, Cambridge, MA, and has published extensively in refereed journals, books, policy reports, and the print media.