Asim Khwaja
Asim Ijaz Khwaja is the Lead Academic for IGC Pakistan.
Asim Ijaz Khwaja is the Director of the Center for International Development and the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, and co-founder of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP). His areas of interest include economic development, finance, education, political economy, institutions, and contract theory/mechanism design. His research combines extensive fieldwork, rigorous empirical analysis, and microeconomic theory to answer questions that are motivated by and engage with policy. It has been published in the leading economics journals, such as the American Economic Review, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and has received coverage in numerous media outlets such as the NY Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Economist, Al-Jazeera, BBC, and CNN. His recent work ranges from understanding market failures in emerging financial markets to examining the private education market in low-income countries. He was selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 2009 to pursue research on how religious institutions impact individual beliefs. Khwaja received BS degrees in economics and in mathematics with computer science from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard. A Pakistani & UK citizen,he was born in London, lived for eight years in Kano, Nigeria, the next eight in Lahore, Pakistan, and the last eighteen years in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Content by Asim Khwaja
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Publication - Project Report
Smart containment with active learning: Evidence from a data-driven rapid policy response to COVID-19 in Punjab
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Project
Big push for the rural economy in Pakistan
Approximately 42% of the labour force is employed in the agricultural sector in Pakistan. In the southern districts of Punjab, around 80% of the population lives in rural areas, 50-70% of whom are employed in the agriculture, livestock, or related sectors. However, years of low productivity and output growth rate have plagued these sectors, threatening the livelihoods of...
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Publication - Policy Brief
La prise de décisions politiques en période d'incertitude : le confinement intelligent avec apprentissage actif
La pandémie de COVID-19 entraîne une crise sanitaire et économique d'une ampleur sans précédent pour cette génération. Avec des preuves limitées sur lesquelles s'appuyer, il est difficile de comprendre quelles politiques utiliser. Face à cette incertitude, des fermetures généralisées ont été imposées dans de nombreux pays développés et en...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Policymaking in uncertain times: Smart containment with active learning (Arabic version)
تؤدي جائحة فيروس كورونا المستجد (COVID-19) إلى كوارث صحية واقتصادية بدرجة غير مسبوقة على هذا الجيل، ومع محدودية الأدلة التي يمكن الاعتماد عليها، يصعب فهم السياسات التي يجب استخدامها. في ظل هذه الأوقات...
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Project
Tying rapid response to smart testing: Empowering local government response in Pakistan’s COVID-19 outbreak
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the world have been grappling with how to determine the prevalence of the virus in their own countries and introduce policy responses that will best mitigate its impact. No ‘optimal’ testing strategy has emerged and a shortage of tests has limited the information on population prevalence and transmission...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Policymaking in uncertain times: Smart containment with active learning
Policies to address the COVID-19 pandemic are being implemented with very limited information. There is already some evidence, however, that the longer lockdowns last, the more likely the economic and non-COVID-19 health impact of the lockdowns could outweigh the potential health impacts of the virus for some countries. Rethinking the way countries undertake policymaking in...
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Blog post
Mobilising local leaders to rebuild the social compact
The social compact between citizen and state, whereby a citizen pays taxes and receives public goods and services, is a critical link in political accountability and the development process. This link is especially salient in the context of local governments and a significant metric on which they are judged. In many developing countries, however, this link is broken. In...
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Data Item
Data: Property tax experiment in Punjab, Pakistan: Testing the role of wages, incentives and audit on tax inspectors’ behaviour
Performance pay for tax collectors has the potential to raise revenues, but might come at a cost if taxpayers face undue pressure from collectors. We report the first large-scale field experiment on these issues, where we experimentally allocated 482 property tax units in Punjab, Pakistan into one of three performance-pay schemes or a control. After two years, incentivized...
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Data Item
Data: Tournaments for postings: Using transfers and postings as an incentive for property tax inspectors in Pakistan
Bureaucracies often post staff to better or worse locations, ostensibly to provide incentives. Yet we know little about whether this works, with heterogeneity in preferences over postings impacting effectiveness. We propose a performance-ranked serial dictatorship mechanism, whereby bureaucrats sequentially choose desired locations in order of performance. We evaluate this...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Making moves matter: Experimental evidence on incentivising bureaucrats through performance-based transfers
Many developing countries suffer from low levels of tax collection due to a mix of poor enforcement, tax evasion, and corruption. As a share of GDP, tax revenues are 45% lower in poor countries than in developed countries which has negative ramifications for public services. At the same time, governments face constraints in providing incentives to civil servants,...
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Publication - Working Paper
Making moves matter: Experimental evidence on incentivising bureaucrats through performance-based transfers
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Publication - Project Report
Pilot study on effect of political influence on tax payment compliance
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Project
Rebuilding the social compact: Urban service delivery and property taxes in Pakistan
A significant challenge to the provision of local public services in developing economies is the inability to raise adequate resources, especially through local taxation. In many countries the social compact, whereby citizens agree to pay taxes to fund government services that are credibly and transparently delivered, is broken. This study investigates whether strengthening...
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Project
Pilot study on effect of political influence connections on tax payment compliance
Limits to fiscal capacity are a major constraint on growth in developing economies. This pilot was conducted as a collection of multiple, parallel scoping exercises that explored the viability of using different data streams to answer the question of whether and to what extent connections with influential people in political, military or bureaucratic circles impact...
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Project
Tournaments for postings: Using transfers and postings as an incentive for property tax inspectors in Pakistan
This randomised control trial examined the impact of incentivising tax collectors in Punjab through job transfers and postings. Offering tax collectors a desirable non-monetary incentive – a merit-based opportunity to be transferred to a better location through a tournament – substantially raised tax revenues. For the treatment group in Year 1, the growth...
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Multimedia Item - Video
Taxing Pakistan: How to motivate civil servants
Salary incentives for tax collectors could significantly increase the amount of taxes raised in Pakistan, according to this new IGC film (produced by Econ Films).
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Multimedia Item - Video
Growth Week 2014: Country Session - Pakistan
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Multimedia Item - Video
Growth Week 2014: Framework Session - Taxation and Development
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Publication - Working Paper
Tax Farming Redux: Experimental Evidence on Performance Pay for Tax Collectors
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Publication - Policy Brief
Education Policy in Pakistan: A Framework for Reform (Policy Brief)
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Project
Support to the Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) phase II
The Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) is a non-profit association of independent organisations based in Pakistan that aim to consolidate resources and organise informed debate on key policy issues. Its participatory organisations include the Center for Economic Research Pakistan (CERP), the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), the...
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Project
Property tax experiment in Punjab, Pakistan: Testing the role of wages, incentives, and audit on tax inspectors’ behaviour
First large-scale field experiment examining impact of introducing performance pay for tax collectors. The results show that incentives, overall, work well to increase tax collection. The revenue scheme was the most successful and increased tax collections by 46%, compared to a 28% increase in the comparison group over the same period of time. ...
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Publication - Working Paper
Skills, Return to Households and Poverty Reduction: Baseline Report of PEOP (Working Paper)