People

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University, advised by Professor James Robinson. My research is currently focused on estimating the economic, institutional, and social impacts of the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) in Afghanistan, which has involved the randomization of program implementation and variations thereof across 500 villages in northern, eastern, western, and central Afghanistan and the administration of over 25,000 interviews of Afghan villagers. When completed, it is hoped that the research will deliver unique, unbiased estimates of the efficacy of externally-imposed micro-institutional reforms and of the comparative effects of different local election and project selection systems. More information on the project, which is supported by the Government of Afghanistan, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and the World Bank, and is a colloborative venture with Professor Fotini Christia of M.I.T., Professor Ruben Enikolopov of the New Economic School in Moscow, and Shahim Kabuli of the World Bank, can be found on the project website. 

My other areas of academic interest include the political economy of international migration, the sources of global wealth inequality, and the economic impacts of institutional anchoring (sometimes known as charter cities / countries). I have previously worked on a prospective impact evaluation of the National Rural Access Program in Afghanistan, with various departments of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., with the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, and with the Bulgarian National Bank in Sofia. I have also co-authored a comparative study of the investment climates of Brazil, India, and South Africa, contributed to a book on globalization and development with Ian Goldin and Kenneth Reinert, put together a co-authored entry on migration for the Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy, and taught a course on the history and theory of economic development at Harvard College over several years between 2001 and 2006. I hold an M.P.A. in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School (my thesis looked at the economic impacts of institutional anchoring) and a B.A. in Economics from Illinois Wesleyan University.