Xavier Gine is a Research Fellow at CERP. He is currently the Lead Economist at, the Development Research Group, at the World Bank. He is a Senior Economist in the Finance and Private Sector Development Team of the Development Research Group. Since joining the World Bank as a Young Economist in 2002, his research has focused on access to financial services and rural financial markets. In recent papers, he investigated the macroeconomic effects of credit liberalisation, the relationship between formal and informal sources of credit in rural credit markets, indigenous interlinked credit contracts in the fishing industry, and the impact of weather insurance. Prior to joining the World Bank, he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the Economic Growth Center at Yale University. Dr Xavier holds a PhD and a MA in Economics from the University of Chicago.