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Professor Adnan Khan

Professor Adnan Khan

Professor in Practice

School of Public Policy

Telephone
020 7955 6692
Email
A.Q.Khan@lse.ac.uk
Room No
CBG 5.21
Connect with me

Website

Languages
English, Punjabi, Urdu
Key Expertise
State Capacity, Economic Development, Political Economy, State Fragility

About me

Prof Khan is currently on secondment as Chief Economist to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the UK.

Before joining the School of Public Policy and STICERD, Professor Khan served as Research and Policy Director at the International Growth Centre at LSE and taught Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Professor Khan has spent more than 15 years in the policy world as a practitioner, policymaker and activist, and more than 10 years in the research world as a researcher, lecturer and as a catalyser of other people’s research.

His areas of interest include economic development and state capacity, political economy and state fragility, and public finance.

CV

Teaching

  • PP450: Public Organisations: Theory and Practice, School of Public Policy, LSE, 2020 –

  • PP454E: Economic Development, EMPA/EMPP, School of Public Policy, LSE. 2019 –

  • STICERD PhD Students Workshop: Working with policy actors, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2019-

Research and Publications

Working Papers and Current Projects
  • Building Trust in the State with Information: Evidence from Urban Punjab (with Andreas Stegmann, Warwick, Mahvish Shaukat, World Bank, and Sanval Nasim, LUMS). Working Paper. 2020.
  • Political Connections and Vote Choice: Evidence from Pakistan (with Jacob Shapiro, Princeton, Michael Callen, LSE, Asad Liaqat, Facebook, Ali Cheema, LUMS, and Farooq Naseer, LUMS) Working Paper. 2019.
  • Policy Decisions and Evidence Use among Civil Servants: A Group Decision Experiment in Pakistan (with Laura Metzger, HKS, and Theodore Svoronos, HKS). CID, STICERD Working Paper. 2020.
  • Effect of Capacity in Delivery of Urban Services (with Gharad Bryan, LSE, Gerard Padro i Miquel, Yale, and Ali Cheema, LUMS). Working Paper. 2020.
  • The Design of Social Protection Programs for the Ultra-Poor: Asset Transfers versus Unconditional Cash Transfers (with Oriana Bandiera, LSE, Robin Burgess, LSE, Orazio Attanasio, UCL, and Imran Rasul, UCL).
  • Rebuilding the Social Compact: Urban Service Delivery and Property Taxes in Pakistan (with Benjamin Olken, MIT, Asim Khwaja, Harvard, and Mahvish Shaukat, MIT).
  • Effect of Capacity in Delivery of Urban Services (with Gharad Bryan, LSE, Gerard Padro i Miquel, Yale, and Ali Cheema, LUMS). 2020.
  • Judicial Access and Development: Evidence from Pakistan (with Daniel Chen, Toulouse, and Sultan Mehmood, New Economic School).
  • Graduating out of Poverty: Testing the impact of Cash Transfers vs. Lump-sum Grants (with Benjamin Olken, MIT, and Rema Hanna, HKS).
  • Transforming the Public Sector by Improving Bureaucratic Performance: Mission Match and Slack in Bangladesh (with Timothy Besley, LSE, and Dan Honig, John Hopkins)
  • Institutional Reforms in Policing: Accountability, Organisational Culture and Social Norms (with Daron Acemoglu, MIT, Claudio Ferraz, UBC, and Zahra Mansoor, Oxford)
  • Strengthening State Capacity and Enhancing Bureaucratic Effectiveness (with Zahra Mansoor, Oxford).
  • Bureaucracy and Development (with Timothy Besley, LSE, Robin Burgess, LSE, and Guo Xu, Berkeley).
  • Transforming the Public Sector by Improving Bureaucratic Performance: Mission Match and Slack in Bangladesh (with Timothy Besley, LSE, and Dan Honig, John Hopkins)
  • Precision versus Proximity: Evidence from Survey Experiments with Civil Servants in India and Pakistan (with Michael Callen, LSE, Asim Khwaja, Harvard, and Asad Liaqat, Facebook).
  • Graduating out of poverty: Testing the impact of Cash Transfers vs. Lump-sum Grants (with Benjamin Olken, MIT, and Rema Hanna, HKS).
  • Technology Adoption and Mobile-phone based Agricultural Advice (with Shawn Cole, HBS).
  • Evaluating the Take-up, Usage, and Impact of Mobile Money Accounts (with Greg Fischer, LSE, Joshua Blumenstock, Berkeley).
  • Effect of Employment on Volunteering and Health Outcomes: Evidence from a Community Employment Project in Canada (with Steven Lehrer, Queens).
  • Identifying the Impact of Decentralization (with Ali Cheema, LUMS, and Asim Khwaja, Harvard)

Recent policy engagement and reports
  • Co-chair, LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development, International Growth Centre.                                                                                                                                                           Escaping the Fragility Trap (with Timothy Besley and Paul Collier), Final Report, April 2018, LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development.

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