I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Dhaka. I am currently on leave from DU and holding Mushtaque Chowdhury chair in Health and Equity at the James P Grant School of Public Health at the BRAC University. I have academic affiliations with JPAL (MIT), International Growth Centre (IGC, based at LSE and Oxford), Centre for Evaluation and Development (C4ED, Mannheim) and Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES, Monash University). I am also an advisor at South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). Previously, I have worked as a full-time Research Fellow at the Institute of Microfinance (InM). Before that I have worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Department of Medicine and Center for Health and Social Science (CHeSS) at the University of Chicago.
Currently, I am working in a number of research projects addressing intra-firm productivity and management issues in ready-made garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. I also work in public health field to understand how promotion using local women leaders and also monitoring and incentive can motivate better hand hygiene behaviours. Recently, I have also worked on evaluating an employer-based mandatory health security scheme to understand how incentives can alter households’ health seeking behaviour. I am also increasingly interested in climate change, energy use, and environmental issues.
I earned my PhD in Economics from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in 2007 where I also got an MA in Economics in 2003. Before that I graduated from the Department of Economics at the University of Dhaka where I obtained MSS in 1998 and BSS (Honours) in 1997.
Currently, I am working in a number of research projects addressing intra-firm productivity and management issues in ready-made garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. I also work in public health field to understand how promotion using local women leaders and also monitoring and incentive can motivate better hand hygiene behaviours. Recently, I have also worked on evaluating an employer-based mandatory health security scheme to understand how incentives can alter households’ health seeking behaviour. I am also increasingly interested in climate change, energy use, and environmental issues.
I earned my PhD in Economics from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in 2007 where I also got an MA in Economics in 2003. Before that I graduated from the Department of Economics at the University of Dhaka where I obtained MSS in 1998 and BSS (Honours) in 1997.
Employment/Affiliations
Current Affiliations
Past Affiliations
- Mushtaque Chowdhury Chair in Health and Poverty, James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University. (September, 2021 – present)
- Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka. (June, 2015 – August, 2021 [currently on leave])
- Non-Resident Fellow, Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES) at Monash Business School, Monash University. (December, 2021 – present)
- Advisor, The South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). (December, 2019 – present)
- Research Affiliate, International Growth Centre (IGC), based at LSE and Oxford (May, 2016 – present)
- Research Fellow, The Center for Evaluation and Development, Mannheim. (January, 2016 – present)
- Director, Economics Research Group, Dhaka, Bangladesh. (December, 2009 – present)
- Invited Researcher, J-PAL Research Initiatives, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), MIT. (October 2019 – present)
Past Affiliations
- Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka. (July, 2010 – June, 2015)
- Associate Scientist, James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University. (February, 2015 – August, 2021)
- Affiliate (currently) and Post-Doctoral Researcher (previously), Urban Services Initiative, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Department of Economics, MIT. (November, 2012 – October, 2018)
- Research Fellow, Institute of Microfinance (InM), Dhaka, Bangladesh. (November, 2009 – June, 2010)
- Post-Doctoral Scholar, Department of Medicine, Section of General Internal Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. (October, 2007 – September, 2009)
- Summer Internship, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington, D.C. (June, 2004 - August, 2004)
- Research Associate, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka, Bangladesh. (November, 2000 - March, 2001)
- Visiting Fellow, Institute of Microfinance (InM), Dhaka, Bangladesh. (July, 2010 – June, 2013)
Ongoing Projects
- Exploring adoption of renewable energy technology (RET) among apparel exporters in Bangladesh: Policy landscape, current capacities, and future pathways
- Building Support for the Mental Health of School Going Adolescents in Rural Bangladesh (with Priya Mukherjee, Nishith Prakash and Eric Edmonds)
- Transforming Households with Refraction and Innovative Financial Technology (THRIFT): Trial of vision interventions to improve digital financial literacy and resilience through the use of mobile-phone based banking apps in Bangladesh (with Nathan Congdon, Abu Shonchoy, Malabika Sarker, Mrittika Barua, Sharmin Akter Shitol, Lynne Lofeld, and other ENGINE consortium members)
- A Media Experiment to Reduce Intimate Partner Violence in Bangladesh (with Nina Buchmann, Pascaline Dupas & Paula Lopez-Pena)
- Engineering Energy-Efficient Behaviours and Conservations in Household Electricity Market in Urban Dhaka (with Debasish Das and Subhrendu P Pattanayak)
- Empowering the measurement of economic growth on the ground: Exploring energy use and enterprise behaviours in Dhaka (with Debasish Das and David I Stern)
Past Projects
- Understanding the Effect of a Health Security Program in Advocating Universal Health Coverage and Improving Productivity of Semi-formal Female Workers in Bangladesh (with Malabika Sarker)
- Understanding the effects of an employer-provided health security program on the well-being, productivity, and health seeking behavior of workers in a semi-formal manufacturing setting in Bangladesh (with Malabika Sarker)
- Well-being, productivity and economic prospects of urban female workers in Bangladesh (with Christopher Woodruff, Muhammad Kamruzzaman Mozumder & Paula Lopez-Pena)
- Worker Well-Being and Productivity in the Bangladesh Garment Sector (with Christopher Woodruff, Muhammad Kamruzzaman Mozumder & Paula Lopez-Pena)
- Productivity Improvements in LIC Manufacturing Sectors: Multidimensional Evidence from Bangladeshi Garment Factories (with Christopher Woodruff & Rocco Macchiavello)
- Do Women make Better Managers of Women? Productivity and misallocation of managerial capital in Bangladeshi Garment Factories (with Christopher Woodruff, Rocco Macchiavelo, Paula Lopez-Pena & Anik Ashraf)
- Managing Shocks: Worker’s Well-being and Firm Productivity in the Bangladeshi Garment Sector (with Christopher Woodruff, Rocco Macchiavelo, Paula Lopez-Pena & Anik Ashraf)
- Building Management Hierarchies for Growth in Low-Income Countries: Understanding the Role of Supervisor Training in the Bangladeshi Garment Sector (with Christopher Woodruff & Rocco Macchiavello)
- Handwashing and Habit Formation (with Reshmaan Hussam, Giovanni Reggiani & Natalie Rigol)
- Cool To Be Cool: Use of Innovative Indigenous Materials for Thermal Comfort (with Malabika Sarker & Zainab Faruqui)
- Assessing BRAC’s Innovative Health Loans in Protecting the Poor against Health and Asset Vulnerability in Bangladesh (with Manuela De Alleghri & Malabika Sarker)
- Improving Rural Effective Total Sanitation through Female Local Government Members of Union Parishad Led Intervention in Bangladesh
