Esteban is the Executive Co-Director of Our World in Data alongside Max Roser. In tandem, they lead Global Change Data Lab, the non-profit organization responsible for publishing Our World in Data.
Esteban is also an Honorary Researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development, where his research and writing cover topics including economic development, public sector analysis, education, and a wide range of related issues.
Prior to joining the team at Our World in Data, Esteban was a Departmental Lecturer in Economics at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, from 2013 to January 2016.
Esteban completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford (DPhil Economics).
Esteban is the Executive Co-Director of Our World in Data alongside Max Roser. In tandem, they lead Global Change Data Lab, the non-profit organization responsible for publishing Our World in Data.
Esteban is also an Honorary Researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development, where his research and writing cover topics including economic development, public sector analysis, education, and a wide range of related issues.
Prior to joining the team at Our World in Data, Esteban was a Departmental Lecturer in Economics at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, from 2013 to January 2016.
Esteban completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford (DPhil Economics).
October 17, 2022
In order to make progress against poverty in the future, we need to understand poverty around the world today and how it has changed.
May 01, 2024
Our peer-reviewed article outlines seven ways to publish data better.
November 28, 2023
People are living longer across the world, but large differences remain. Explore global data on life expectancy and how it has changed over time.
July 14, 2023
See all our data, visualizations, and writing on economic growth.
August 19, 2024
How many people are affected by homelessness? How is their number changing over time? Explore global data and research on homelessness.
March 15, 2013
How has democracy spread across countries? Are we moving towards a more democratic world? Explore global data and research on democracy.
July 07, 2023
See all our data, visualizations, and writing on economic inequality.
May 12, 2023
How has the protection of women’s rights changed over time? How does it differ across countries? Explore global data and research on women’s rights.
November 01, 2019
How big are the inequalities in pay, jobs, and wealth between men and women? What causes these differences?
April 02, 2023
Suicide rates can be reduced with greater understanding and support for people at risk.
July 22, 2016
Trust is essential for effective cooperation. How does trust vary between different societies and locations and what matters for levels of trust?
May 10, 2019
How common is corruption? What impact does it have? And what can be done to reduce it?
November 18, 2022
Migration has been an important source of economic development and poverty reduction. Explore data on global migration.
December 01, 2020
How much time do people across the world spend working? How have working hours changed over time, and what do these changes matter for people’s lives? Explore data and research on working hours.
More than half of the world is online. But the internet is still young.
September 20, 2018
Being able to read and write opens up the world of education and knowledge. When and why did more people become literate? How can progress continue?
November 29, 2020
How do people across the world spend their time? How do daily activities differ across countries, and how do these differences matter for people’s lives? Explore data and research on time use.
July 25, 2020
How is the institution of marriage changing? What percentage of marriages end in divorce? Explore global data on marriages and divorces.
March 01, 2018
How does women’s labor force participation differ across countries? How has it changed over time? What is behind these differences and changes?
May 01, 2017
Self-reported life satisfaction differs widely between people and between countries. What explains these differences?
February 03, 2020
In this topic page, we explore data on loneliness and social connections and review available evidence on the link between social connections and well-being.
December 11, 2019
The media claims we are experiencing a ‘loneliness epidemic’. What is the evidence for this?
December 11, 2019
In countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, it is very common for people to live alone; but contrary to what many believe, this does not translate into higher loneliness. Loneliness and aloneness are not the same.
November 15, 2019
Social connections matter for economic outcomes. Personal relations, even those that we maintain for non-economic reasons, often give us access to information and provide us with social collateral for economic transactions.
November 07, 2019
Social networks facilitate the diffusion of ideas across individuals and firms. Because of this, they play an important role in productivity growth.
January 06, 2021
The primary way to measure working hours is with surveys, but the data can have limitations that are important to understand.
December 21, 2020
Workers in richer countries tend to work fewer hours than those in poorer countries.
December 16, 2020
Working hours for the average worker have decreased dramatically over the last 150 years.
September 18, 2019
Social media sites are used by more than two-thirds of Internet users. How has social media grown over time?
September 09, 2019
What does the research tell us about the causal impact of social media use on our well-being?
June 24, 2019
There is a cross-country correlation between democracy and health. Is there good evidence to suggest it is causal?
January 25, 2019
We are one of the few non-profits that Y Combinator has decided to accept.
October 22, 2018
October 01, 2018
How did international trade and globalization change over time? What do they look like today? And what are their impacts?
October 18, 2016
What do governments spend their financial resources on?
August 16, 2016
An overview of our research on global health.
October 24, 2023
See all our data, visualizations, and writing on global education.
September 01, 2016
Taxes are the most important source of government revenue. Who is paying how much and how do tax systems differ?
February 01, 2016
Why and where do children work? How did child labor change over time?
September 02, 2013
How large are countries’ militaries? How much do they spend on their armed forces? Explore global data on military personnel and spending.
June 08, 2018
An overview of how literacy is defined, and how estimates compare to other measures of educational achievement.
April 22, 2018
Do most countries devote resources to maintain armies even when they are not immersed in a critical conflict? How are military capabilities changing in the 21st century?
March 19, 2018
The Economic Complexity Index offers insights into how diversified and sophisticated a country's export profile is. This matters for economic growth and development potential.
October 30, 2017
As today’s developed countries grew richer, they experienced a process of ‘structural transformation’. Are developing countries following a similar process?
September 29, 2017
The reduction of poverty has also happened because public spending and redistribution have increased significantly.
September 17, 2017
How could it be that happiness inequality falls with rising income inequality?
September 11, 2017
We tend to underestimate the average happiness of people around us. One possible explanation is that we are positive about ourselves, but negative about those we don't know.
August 28, 2017
How is life expectancy calculated, what does it mean, and what’s the difference between period and cohort life expectancy?
August 01, 2017
June 17, 2017
June 16, 2017
How is healthcare financed? How much do we spend on it? What are the returns?
May 26, 2017
Most of the advanced economies of the world have been deindustrializing for decades and have moved into a new ‘post-industrial’ phase of development. This post asks how they got there.
