Marta Favara
PhD in Economics - University of Essex
marta.favara@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Marta is a Senior Researcher at the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford where she is leading the quantitative research agenda of Young Lives since 2015. She is also a Research Fellow at the Oxford Martin School Programme on African Governance and an IZA Research Affiliate. Before joining Young Lives, she worked as an economist at the World Bank. She obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Essex (UK) and a Masters in Economics from the University of Leuven (Belgium).
Her main research interests include development economics (poverty, inequality and early childhood development); labour economics (education and gender) and behavioural economics (choice under uncertainty, adolescent risk behaviours). Her recent work focuses on foundational skills formation and young people’s behaviour (transition to the labour market, fertility decision and schooling enrolment). In addition, she investigates the role of aspirations and subjective expectations as potential self-enforcing mechanisms underlying poverty and gender inequality.
Publications
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Young Lives attrition report: Round 7
2025 María de los Ángeles Molina, Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez, Amanda Woodman
Over more than 20 years, Young Lives has followed two cohorts born seven years apart (Favara et al. 2021). This technical note documents the attrition rates from the seventh round of the Young Lives survey carried out in Ethiopia, India (the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) and Peru in 2023–24, when the Younger Cohort […]
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JournalEconomics & Human Biology
Long-term effects of early life rainfall shocks on foundational cognitive skills: Evidence from Peru
2024 Nicolás Pazos, Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez, Douglas Scott, Jere Behrman
Global warming is changing precipitation patterns, particularly harming communities in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs). Whilst the long-term effects of being exposed to rainfall shocks early in life on school-achievement tests are well-established, there is little population-based evidence from LMICs on the mechanisms through which these shocks operate. Executive functions (EFs) are key for children’s learning […]
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JournalEconomics of Education Review
Late-childhood foundational cognitive skills predict educational outcomes through adolescence and into young adulthood: Evidence from Ethiopia and Peru
2024 Jennifer López, Jere R. Behrman, Santiago Cueto, Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez
We estimate associations between foundational cognitive skills (inhibitory control, working memory, long-term memory, and implicit learning) measured at age 12 and educational outcomes measured at ages 15 and 19–20 in Ethiopia and Peru, using the Young Lives data. The estimates adjust for rich sets of controls and include measurements of children’s baseline abilities. For a […]
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JournalWorld Development
Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries
2024 Alan Sanchez, Marta Favara, Margaret Sheridan, Jere R. Behrman
The existing evidence linking early undernutrition to educational outcomes in developing countries is largely focused on assessing its impacts on grade attainment and achievement test scores, with limited evidence on the foundational cognitive skills required to perform well at school. We use unique data collected in Ethiopia and Peru as part of the Young Lives […]
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Las habilidades cognitivas medidas durante la adolescencia predicen los resultados educativos: Evidencia de Etiopia y Perú
2023 Jennifer López, Jere R. Behrman, Santiago Cueto, Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez
Utilizando datos de Niños del Milenio (NdM), se investiga la asociación entre las habilidades cognitivas medidas a los 12 años y los resultados educativos medidos a los 15 y 20 años. Los y las jóvenes con mayores puntajes en memoria de largo plazo y memoria de trabajo mostraron mejores resultados en las pruebas de vocabulario, […]
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Late-childhood foundational cognitive skills predict educational outcomes through adolescence and into young adulthood: Evidence from Ethiopia and Peru
2022 Jennifer López, Jere R. Behrman, Santiago Cueto, Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez
The authors estimate the associations between a set of foundational cognitive skills (inhibitory control, working memory, long-term memory, and implicit learning) measured at age 12 and educational outcomes measured at ages 15 and 19-20 in Ethiopia and Peru (the Young Lives study). The estimates adjust for a rich set of lagged controls and include measurements […]
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Unpacking the post-lockdown employment recovery of young women in the global south
2021 Douglas Scott, Richard Freund, Marta Favara, Catherine Porter, Alan Sanchez
This paper analyses the difference in short-term employment recovery between young men and women in India, Peru and Vietnam following the national lockdowns imposed in all three countries during 2020. The authors employ a mediation model to establish whether – and to what extent – commonly suggested mechanisms are responsible for a relatively slower recovery among […]
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Consequences of teenage childbearing in Peru: Is the extended school-day reform an effective policy instrument to prevent teenage pregnancy?
2019 Alan Sanchez, Marta Favara
In Peru, approximately 14 out of 100 female adolescents are mothers. Teenage childbearing is a major policy concern, as most studies point to a negative impact of early fertility on maternal outcomes and on the birth and future of the children. This paper investigates the role of extended school-day programmes, primarily seen as a means […]
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No longer children: What do Young Lives children do when they grow up?
2018 Marta Favara, Grace Chang, Alan Sanchez
No longer children: What do Young Lives children do when they grow up? is a Young Lives research report, synthesising research from the past two survey rounds (in 2013 and 2016) to reflect on how the experience of poverty early in life affects future opportunities, documenting children and young people’s trajectories from school into post-secondary […]
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Psychosocial competencies and risky behaviours in Peru
2016 Marta Favara, Alan Sanchez
There is a growing concern about the prevalence of risky behaviours among young people, which ultimately lead to worse outcomes later in life, including lower salaries and worse socio-economic and life outcomes. On the other hand, there is little evidence about the prevalence of these behaviours and their determinants in the context of developing countries. […]
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JournalWorld Development
Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries
2024 Alan Sanchez, Marta Favara, Margaret Sheridan, Jere R. Behrman
The existing evidence linking early undernutrition to educational outcomes in developing countries is largely focused on assessing its impacts on grade attainment and achievement test scores, with limited evidence on the foundational cognitive skills required to perform well at school. We use unique data collected in Ethiopia and Peru as part of the Young Lives […]
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JournalFrontiers in Nutrition
Development of an online food frequency questionnaire and estimation of misreporting of energy intake during the COVID-19 pandemic among young adults in Peru
2022 María Jesús Vega-Salas, Katherine Curi-Quinto, Alessandra Hidalgo-Aréstegui, Krysty Meza-Carbajal, Nataly Lago-Berrocal, Lena Arias, Marta Favara, Mary Penny, Alan Sanchez, Karani Santhanakrishnan Vimaleswaran
This study aims to describe the multi-stage process used to adapt a previously validated face-to-face Food Frequency Questionnaries (FFQ) of an online self-administered FFQ for young adults in Peru during the pandemic, including the selection of the food items, portion sizes, and food frequency response options. Furthermore, it aims at validating the FFQ by estimating the […]
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JournalPublic Health in Practice
The evolution of young people’s mental health during COVID-19 and the role of food insecurity: evidence from a four low-and-middle-income-country cohort study
2022 Catherine Porter, Annina Hittmeyer, Marta Favara, Douglas Scott, Alan Sanchez
Provide evidence on how young people’s mental health has evolved in Low-and-Middle-Income-Countries (LMICs) during the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic. Identify particularly vulnerable groups who report high and/or continuously high rates of mental health issues. Two consecutive phone-surveys (August–October and November–December 2020) in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam interviewed around 9000 participants of a 20-year […]
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JournalThe Journal of Develoment Studies
Young Lives, interrupted: Short-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents in low- and middle-income countries
2022 Marta Favara, Richard Freund, Catherine Porter, Alan Sanchez, Douglass Scott
Researchers examine the situation of adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic in four low- and middle-income countries using data from a large-scale phone survey conducted in 2020. The survey was part of Young Lives, a 20-year longitudinal study of two cohorts of young people born in 1994 and 2001 in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), […]
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JournalNutrients
Role of government financial support and vulnerability characteristics associated with food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic among young Peruvians
2021 Katherine Curi-Quinto, Alan Sanchez, Nataly Lago-Berrocal, Mary E Penny, Claudia Murray, Richard Nunes, Marta Favara, Anisha Wijeyesekera, Julie Lovegrove, Victor Soto-Cáceres, Karani Santhanakrishnan Vimaleswaran
Using data from the longitudinal study Young Lives Peru, the authors investigated the profile of the young people in the study affected by food insecurity during the pandemic. They take into account the sociodemographic characteristics of Peruvian prendemic households and other shocks that made them more vulnerable. They also assess the government’s response role
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