Ricardo Paes de Barros is the Director of Social Policy and Research at the National Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) in Brazil. He has been a researcher at IPEA for over 20 years, and is the author of numerous books and scientific publications on labor and human development economics in Brazil, including an award-winning article on The evolution of welfare, poverty and inequality in Brazil over the last three decades: 1960-1990. Dr. Barros holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, U.S.A., and a masters in Statistics from the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has also conducted postdoctoral research at both the Chicago University and Yale University, U.S.A.