Marta Favara is a development economist and currently directs the Young Lives study at the Oxford Department of International Development. She is an IZA Research Fellow, a Fellow at Wolfson College, and an Associate Member of the Economics Department, University of Oxford.

Her research focuses on investigating the impact of early childhood experiences of poverty and inequality on later life outcomes and the impact of shocks and crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflict, and environmental shocks, on young people transitioning into adulthood. Marta recently launched and currently directs the Young Lives Research Hub on Climate Change and Environmental Shocks, aiming to generate policy-relevant evidence on the long-term and intergenerational impacts of extreme weather events, increasing temperatures, and worsening air pollution throughout the life-course. Before joining Young Lives, Marta worked as an economist at the World Bank (Young Professionals Programme). She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Essex (UK) and an MSc in Economics from the University of Leuven (Belgium).