Asim Khwaja

Asim Ijaz Khwaja is the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, Co-Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), 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.

He has been published in 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 Economist, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, 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, U.K., and U.S. citizen, he was born in London, U.K., lived for eight years in Kano, Nigeria, the next eight in Lahore, Pakistan, and the past eighteen years in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He continues to enjoy interacting with people around the globe.

Khwaja also serves as the faculty co-chair of a week-long executive education program, "Rethinking Financial Inclusion: Smart Design for Policy and Practice," aimed primarily at professionals involved in the design and regulation of financial products and services for low-income populations.

Selected Publications

Academic Journal/Scholarly Articles

• Iyer, Rajkamal, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, Erzo F. P. Luttmer, and Kelly Shue. "Screening Peers Softly: Inferring the Quality of Small Borrowers." Management Science 62.6 (June 2016): 1554–1577.
• Khan, Adnan Q., Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Benjamin Olken. "Tax Farming Redux: Experimental Evidence on Performance Pay for Tax Collectors." Quarterly Journal of Economics 131.1 (February 2016).
• Clingingsmith, David, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Michael Kremer. "Estimating the Impact of the Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam's Global Gathering." Quarterly Journal of Economics 124.3 (August 2009): 1133-1170.
• Khwaja, Asim Ijaz, and Atif Mian. "Tracing the Impact of Bank Liquidity Shocks: Evidence from an Emerging Market." American Economic Review 98.4 (September 2008): 1413-1442.
• Khwaja, Asim Ijaz, and Atif Mian. "Do Lenders Favor Politically Connected Firms? Rent Provision in an Emerging Financial Market." Quarterly Journal of Economics 120.4 (November 2005): 1371-1411.

HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series

• Adnan Q. Khan, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Benjamin A. Olken. "Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Transfers." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP17-006, November 2016.
• Andrabi, Tahir, Jishnu Das, and Asim Ijaz Khwaja. "Report Cards: The Impact of Providing School and Child Test Scores on Educational Markets." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP14-052, October 2014.

Outside Professional Activities

Transparent Engagement

Harvard Kennedy School is proud of its energetic involvement in the world. To better understand how to solve public problems by improving policy and leadership, we engage directly with policymakers, public leaders, governments, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit businesses whose activities affect those problems. However, we recognize that such engagement can raise questions about perceived and potential conflicts of interest, so we disclose publicly the key professional activities of our faculty outside the Kennedy School.

Outside Professional Activities For Asim Khwaja

Disclosures for current year:

• Entrepreneurial Finance Lab - Global. Chairman of the Board. Unpaid w/ Equity Compensation.
• Review of Economics and Statistics (journal). Editor Compensation.
• Centre for Economic research, Pakistan, Director. Unpaid.