Muhammad Yasir Khan
Muhammad Yasir Khan is a graduate student at University of California Berkeley. He also has dual Masters from Columbia University New York and LKY School of Public Policy in Singapore. His research focuses on issues of public service delivery in developing countries and using experiments to identify ways for improvement. Before starting the graduate programme Yasir worked as Country Economist for IGC Pakistan.
Content by Yasir Khan
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Project
Preference parameters and public sector contracts: A field study with polio vaccinators in Pakistan
Workers' time preferences can be measured using their intertemporal allocations of real work tasks and then used to individually customise incentive contracts. In a previous study, we worked with polio vaccinators in Lahore who travelled door-to-door to deliver polio vaccine. The intervention led both to better polio vaccine coverage and provided proof-of-concept that...
1 Feb 2020 | Michael Callen, Yasir Khan, Karrar Hussain, Charles Sprenger
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Project
Mission driven intrinsic motivation and performance of public workers in Pakistan
Public workers in many developing countries shirk at their job and do not exert socially optimal effort. While linking financial incentives to objectively measured performance is one way to improve public services, it is not always feasible for resource-constrained countries to provide significant financial bonuses. Instead, using the intrinsic motivations of workers could...
2 Dec 2019 | Yasir Khan
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Project
Social spillovers and female political participation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
There exists a large gap in political participation between genders in Pakistan. This project looks to explain part of this gap by studying how social networks condition the political participation of males and females in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Past research has shown that women are less willing to express their political preferences than men (Khan 2017). In addition,...
26 Nov 2019 | Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan, Luke Sonnet
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Blog post
Mission creep and motivation among community health workers in Pakistan
Poor communication and multiple tasks from the Department of Health and Lady Health Worker Programme managers renders workers unsure of their mission and unmotivated. Pakistan is home to high child mortality rates. According to the Pakistan Social and Living Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2014-15, in rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), one in ten children suffer a bout of diarrhoea...
1 Oct 2019 | Yasir Khan
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Project
Impact of leadership and negotiation training on politician performance
Elected local governments are the first point of contact between the citizen and the state. Their performance matters for effective service delivery, rule of law and trust of citizen in the state. However constraints in terms of soft skills may hinder their performance. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, a new layer of governance in the form of village councils has been...
14 Jun 2016 | Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan
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Publication - Project Memo
Using preference parameter estimates to optimise public sector wage contracts: A field study in Pakistan (Project Memo)
9 Feb 2016 | Michael Callen, Yasir Khan
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Publication - Working Paper
Crowdsourcing government accountability: Experimental evidence from Pakistan
5 Nov 2015 | Arman Rezaee, Ali Hasanain, Yasir Khan
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Project
Coordinating farmers with cellphones: Technology innovation in livestock extension in Pakistan
Summary Livestock agriculture accounts for twelve percent of GDP in Pakistan, and is a key growth sector for the rural poor, as in much of South Asia. However, the market for livestock faces many of the same imperfections in developing countries as do land or crop markets. We implemented in partnership with the Punjab Livestock and Dairy Department a data-driven, state...
4 Sep 2015 | Ali Hasanain, Arman Rezaee, Yasir Khan
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Publication - Working Paper
Using preference parameter estimates to optimise public sector wage contracts: A field study in Pakistan
28 Aug 2015 | Michael Callen, Karrar Hussain, Yasir Khan, Charles Sprenger
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Publication - Working Paper
Reclaiming prosperity in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa: A medium term strategy for inclusive growth (summary)
1 Apr 2015 | Khalid Ikram, Syed Turab Hussain, Bilal Siddiqi, Usman Khan, Yasir Khan, Munir Ahmed, Osama Siddique, Anjum Nasim, Arif Nadeem, Muhammad Ahsan Rana, Hina Shaikh, Rashid Amjad, G. M. Arif
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Publication - Working Paper
Reclaiming prosperity in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa: A medium term strategy for inclusive growth (full report)
1 Apr 2015 | Khalid Ikram, Syed Turab Hussain, Bilal Siddiqi, Usman Khan, Yasir Khan, Munir Ahmed, Osama Siddique, Anjum Nasim, Arif Nadeem, Muhammad Ahsan Rana, Hina Shaikh, Rashid Amjad, G. M. Arif
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Publication - Project Memo
Employee Personalities and Public Sector Performance (Project Memo)
24 Nov 2014 | Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan
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Project
Employee personalities and public sector performance
Absenteeism and low productivity among government employees in developing countries is notoriously high Doctors in some regions of Pakistan are absent up to 68% of the time Appointing staff identified via personality tests could improve productivity in a cost effective way Governments are the primary provider of services for the poor in developing...
4 Sep 2014 | Michael Callen, Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan, Ali Hasanain
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Project
Using preference parameter estimates to optimise public sector wage contracts: A field study in Pakistan
Polio is a major problem in Pakistan with more than 300 confirmed cases reported in 2014 Weak monitoring and flat incentive structures are key reasons for the dismal quality of public vaccination campaigns This study uses mobile based monitoring and bonuses to improve performance of polio eradication campaign workers Polio is a major problem in...
4 Sep 2014 | James Andreoni, Charles Sprenger, Michael Callen, Karrar Hussain, Yasir Khan
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Project
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa economic strategy report
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has the 3rd largest provincial economy in Pakistan but its growth has been poor The provincial government needed a strategy to put the economy on the path to growth IGC researchers found that remittances, regional trade, and emerging urban expansion provide ideal engines for growth The provincial government has used the framework...
1 Oct 2013 | Khalid Ikram, Syed Turab Hussain, Bilal Siddiqi, Usman Khan, Yasir Khan, Munir Ahmed, Osama Siddique, Sarah Saeed
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Publication - Working Paper
The Political Economy of Health Worker Absence: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan (Working Paper)
30 Jan 2013 | Michael Callen, Ali Hasanain, Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan
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Publication - Policy Brief
Bureaucratic Underperformance and Patronage: Evidence from Pakistan (Policy Brief)
1 Jan 2013 | Michael Callen, Eli Berman, Ali Hasanain, Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan
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Publication - Working Paper
Learning in Public Schools (Working Paper)
1 Jun 2012 | Muhammad Farooq Naseer, Tahir Andrabi, Yasir Khan
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Project
Monitoring the Monitors: Using ICT to improve government monitoring in Punjab, Pakistan
In many developing countries, accurate data on resource utilization in public schools, hospitals, and other service facilities are rarely available. This creates two parallel sets of problems: First, a lack of data for process evaluation can lead to misallocations in medicine, human and other service delivery resources. Second, information bottlenecks between service...
1 Mar 2012 | Michael Callen, Ali Hasanain, Saad Gulzar, Yasir Khan
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Project
Exploiting inter-school variation in test scores to improve quality of public schools
The quality of education in Pakistan has received substantial interest from policy makers and researchers alike. Studies like LEAPS (2005) and ASER (2011) show that, on average, public schools are outperformed on tests of student learning by private schools. This gap between public and private education is primarily explained by school-level factors and persists even after...
1 Nov 2011 | Muhammad Farooq Naseer, Tahir Andrabi, Sohaib Ahmad Khan, Yasir Khan