Máximo Torero
Title: Chief Economist
Biography
Mr. Maximo Torero Cullen is the Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He joined the Organization in January 2019 as Assistant Director-General for the Economic and Social Development Department. Prior to joining FAO, he was the World Bank Group Executive Director for Argentina, Bolivia, Chile Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay since November 2016 and before the Bank Mr. Torero led the Division of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). His major research work lies mostly in analyzing poverty, inequality, importance of geography and assets (private or public) in explaining poverty, and in policies oriented towards poverty alleviation based on the role played by infrastructure, institutions, and on how technological breakthroughs (or discontinuities) can improve the welfare of households and small farmers. His experience encompasses Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.
Mr. Torero, a national of Peru, holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of the Pacific, Lima, Peru. He is a professor on leave at the University of the Pacific, Perú, and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at University of Bonn, Germany, and has also published in top journals (QJE, Econometric Theory, AER-Applied Microeconomics, RSTAT, Labor Economics and many other top journals).
Mr. Torero has received in 2000 the Georg Foster Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, won the Award for Outstanding Research on Development given by the Global Development Network, twice, in 2000 and in 2002, and received the Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole in 2014.
For more information, visit: https://maximotorero.com/
Speeches/Writings
Project Syndicate: The Second Green Revolution Will Be Digitized
20/01/2023
Six decades after the Green Revolution began, the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence may usher in another agricultural transformation.
Ending Hunger: A Dream or Still a Possibility?
16/10/2022
At the 1974 World Food Congress in Rome, Henry Kissinger declared that in 10 years no child would go to bed hungry. Although his prediction did not come true, the...
L.A. Times: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Should Not Cause a Hunger Crisis
04/03/2022
The trade fallout of the Russia-Ukraine conflict would be devastating for the world’s poor for whom inflation has put even the most basic foods beyond reach.
The Food Trade Can’t Stop (Español)
18/01/2022
In this difficult time, we should tighten health protocols in agro-industrial value chains but without curbing the mobility of food or key inputs. Otherwise, the consequences could be extremely serious....
Project Syndicate: Ending Hunger Sustainably
15/10/2021
Saving the planet does not have to come at the expense of feeding the poor, and vice versa. If governments can implement a series of relatively low-cost initiatives with private-sector...
In the media
