Robert
Holzmann
Prof. Robert Holzmann, an Austrian national, is the Director
of the Social Protection Department of the Human Development Network of the
World Bank. This unit is in charge of the conceptual and strategic Bank work
in the area of Social Risk Management, Covering, Labor Market Interventions
(including Child Labor), Social Insurance (including Pensions) and Social Safety
Nets (including Social Funds). He is the key author of the Bank's Social Protection
Sector Strategy paper. The paper proposes a new definition for Social Protection
and is based on the newly developed Social Risk Management framework. He joined
the Bank with a leave of absence from the University of Saarland (Germany),
where he is a Professor of Economics and Director of the European Institute.
He was Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna and a Guest Professor
at universities in Chile, Japan and the USA. As Principal Administrator at the
Overseas Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) he wrote a comprehensive
report on public pension reform in industrialized countries. At the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and later as a Consultant, he worked on fiscal and social
security issues of Central and Eastern European transition economies, and researched
the economic and financial market effects of the Chilean pension reform. At
the Bank he was heavily involved in social protection programs during the recent
financial crisis in East Asia. He has published 18 books and over 100 articles
on social, fiscal and financial policy issues.