Imran Rasul
Biography
Imran Rasul, OBE is Professor of Economics at University College London (UCL).
He is Co-director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Centre on Wealth Concentration, Inequality and the Economy at the UCL Department of Economics.
Professor Rasul is also Director of the ESRC Institute for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
He is currently serving as the President of the Royal Economic Society for the 2025-2026 term.
Additionally, he is President of the European Economic Association & Co-President of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development.
He was awarded the Order of the British Empire for Services to Social Sciences in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2020.
Interviews
Imran Rasul On The Economics Of Poverty Alleviation & How To Foster Innovation in Organizations. March x, 2026.
Academic Publications (Selected)
From Field Experiments to Policy Interventions at Scale, Science, Vol 391, Issue 6790, March 2026.
Accelerating Birth Timing to Access Cash Transfers? Evidence from Households in Extreme Poverty, joint with Pedro Carneiro (UCL), Lucy Kraftman (IoE), Francesca Salvati (Essex) and Molly Scott (Cabinet Office), Journal of Health Economics, Volume 106: 103098 (34 pages), March 2026.
The Role of Organizations in Fostering Innovation, Science, Vol 390, Issue 6773, November 2025.
The Search for Good Jobs: Evidence from a Six-year Field Experiment in Uganda, joint with Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Vittorio Bassi (USC), Robin Burgess (LSE), Munshi Sulaiman (BRAC) and Anna Vitali (UCL), Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 43, Number 3, 885-935, July 2025.
Parental Responses to Information About School Quality: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data, joint with Ellen Greaves (Bristol), Iftikhar Hussain (Sussex) and Birgitta Rabe (Essex), Economic Journal, Volume 133, Issue 654, 2334-2402, August 2023.
Social Incentives, Delivery Agents and the Effectiveness of Development Interventions, joint with Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Erika Deserranno (Northwestern), Ricardo Morel (IPA), Robin Burgess (LSE), and Munshi Sulaiman (BRAC), Journal of Political Economy: Micro, Volume 1, Issue 1, 162-224, February 2023.
Microfinance and Diversification, joint with Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Erika Deserranno (Northwestern), Ricardo Morel (IPA), Robin Burgess (LSE), Munshi Sulaiman (BRAC) and Jack P.Thiemel (LSE), Economica, Volume 89, Issue S1, S239-75, June 2022.
Born
1974
Citizenship
British
Education
PhD Economics, London School of Economics
MPhil Economics, Oxford University
BSc Economics, London School of Economics
Doctoral Dissertation
Non-contractabilities in the Household - Theory and Evidence
Doctoral Supervisor
Timothy Besley
Institutions
University College London
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Fields
Labor Economics
Development Economics
Public Economics
Honors, Awards, & Grants
2025 Fellow, Royal Economic Society 2025 ESRC Institutional Diversity Fund, Institute for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at IFS [£290,000; PI]
2025 ESRC Institute for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at IFS [£11mn; PI]
2024 Nuffield Foundation: Transforming Justice: The Interplay of Social Change and Policy Reforms [£2.5mn; PI]
2024 Rockwool Grant: Skills Mismatch in the Labor Market [£570,000; PI]
2023 ESRC Large Grant: Economic Opportunities by Race and Ethnicity in the UK [£2.5mn; PI] 2023 Ta-Chung Liu Distinguished Visitor, University of Chicago BFI
2023 Elected Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences
2022 Youth Endowment Fund: Your Choice Evaluation at IFS [£1.17mn; PI]
2020 GCRF: COVID-19, Firm Dynamics and Market Structure in Urban Uganda [£78,000; PI]
2020 ESRC: Machine Learning Methods for Studying the Trajectories of Young Offenders in Administrative Data [£200,000; PI]
2020 Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for Services to Social Sciences, Queen’s Birthday Honours
2020 Elected Fellow, Econometric Society 2020 PEDL: COVID-19, Firm Dynamics and Market Structure in Urban Uganda [£29,000; PI]
2020 ESRC Institute for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at IFS [£9.7mn; Co-I]
2020 Standard Life Research Grant: Monitoring Personal Finances through the COVID-19 Crisis Using Real Time Bank Account Data [£90,000; Co-I]
2019 Elected Fellow, British Academy 2019 Yrjö Jahnsson Award in Economics (received jointly with Oriana Bandiera), awarded to a European economist no older than 45 years old who has made a contribution in theoretical and applied research that is significant to economics in Europe [YJ Lecture]
2019 UCL GCRF Grant: Empowering Women in a Time of Crisis: Evidence from a Field Experiment During the Ebola Crisis in Sierra Leone, [£100,000; PI]
2018 IGC Grant: The Long-term Impact of Vocational Training and Job Search Assistance for Unemployed Youth: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Uganda [£10,000; PI]
2017 Fellow, European Economic Association
2017 World Bank i2i Implementation Grant: Civil Service Reform in Ghana [$100,000; CI]
2017 British Academy Early Childhood Development Programme: Intergenerational Impacts of Asset Transfers in Bangladesh [£330,000; Co-I]
2017 British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship
2017 Economic Development and Institutions (EDI) Grant: Training for Productivity: An Experimental Evaluation of Civil Service Reform in Ghana [£100,000; Co-I]
2017 IGC Grant: Training For Productivity: An Experimental Evaluation of Civil Service Reform in Ghana [£100,000; PI]
2017 British Academy: GCRF Sustainable Development Programme Additional Funding [£18,000; PI]
2017 UCL Laidlaw Scholarship Project Supervisor [£10,000]
2016 IGC Grant: Training for Productivity: Relaxing the Constraints to Management and Productivity in the Civil Service [£9,000: PI]
2016 British Academy: GCRF Sustainable Development Programme [£341,000; PI]
2016 World Bank i2i: Improving Bureaucratic Information in the Civil Service of Pakistan [$150,000; Co-I]
2016 IGC Grant: Training for Productivity: Relaxing the Constraints to Management and Productivity in the Civil Service [£10,000; PI]
2016 IGC Grant: The Design of Anti-Poverty Transfers to the Ultra-Poor: Asset Transfers or Cash Transfers? [£167,000; PI]
2016 Distinguished Visitor, Boston University
2015 ESRC Grant: Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies [£7.4mn; Co-Director]
2015 IGC Grant: Researching the Impact of Manager Characteristics in Bureaucracies [£20,000; PI]
2015 IGC Grant: How did Ebola Impact the Economic Lives of Adolescent Girls in Sierra Leone? [£50,000; PI]
2015 IGC Grant: The Effectiveness of Government Bureaucracy: A Study of the Ghanaian Civil Service [£150,000; PI]
2015 World Bank Grant: PPAF-CERP Project on In Kind versus Asset Transfers, Pakistan [$250,000; PI]
2015 J-PAL Post Primary Education and Youth Initiatives Grant: Empowering Adolescent Girls: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Sierra Leone [$150,000; PI]
2014 GLM/LIC Grant: Asymmetric Information on the Skills of Workers and Matching in theLabor Market: Evidence from Uganda [£157,000; PI]
2013 Deutsche Bahn Prize for Outstanding Research in Organisation and Management (joint with Daniel Rogger), Prize Committee: A.Banerjee, G.Friebel and R.Gibbons.
2013 DfID Child Development Grants: Cash Transfers Pilot in Northern Nigeria, 2013-17, [£1.3mn, Impact Evaluation Team Leader] 2012 PEDL-IZA-DFID Grant: Easing Constraints for Small Firm Expansion in Uganda [£348,600; PI]
2012 ERC Starting Grant: The Economics of Mass Migration [€1.1mn; PI]
2012 International Growth Center: Mapping Informal and Formal Providers on the Supply Side of the Livestock Market: Evidence from the Punjab Economic Opportunities Programme (PEOP), Pakistan [£38,500; Co-PI]
2012 Ministry of Justice, Payment by Results Pilot Programme [£58,951; Co-PI].
2012 ATAI: Women Farmers and Barriers to Technology Adoption: A Randomized Evaluation of BRAC's Extension Program in Rural Uganda: [$233,858; Co-I]
2012 BRAC, Mastercard Foundation and anonymous donors: Expansion of Small Firms and Job Creation for the Youth in Uganda, Uganda [$1mn; Co-PI]
2011 Schoeller Senior Fellow 2011 [€50,000]: Understanding Illicit Behavior
2011 Briefing Paper for Nuffield Foundation on Behavioural Economics and Public Policy [£32,054, Co-applicant, PI: Andrew Leicester]
2011 Fund for Evaluation in Youth Employment, ILO: Grant for follow-up survey in Tanzania of adolescent girls for the evaluation of an entrepreneurship program [$58,099, PI] 2010 UCL IMPACT Award [3-year PhD award]
2009 Centre for Understanding Behaviour Change, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families [£2.5mn; Co-I]
2008 Gender Action Plan (GAP), World Bank: Human Capital, Financial Capital, and the Economic Empowerment of Female Adolescents: Evidence from a Randomized Intervention [$300,000; Co-PI]
2008 British Academy Research Development Award: The Making of Modern America - Characteristics and Outcomes of Migrants to the US 1892-1924 [£149,437; Co-I]
2008 CESIfo Distinguished Affiliate Award 2008 Excellence in Refereeing Award, American Economic Review
2007 ESRC RES-000-22-1859: Social Connections, Sorting and the Productivity of Teams: Evidence from Combined Personnel and Survey Data [£80,305; Co-I]
2007 ESRC RES-000-22-2182: Estimating the Social Consequences of the Decriminalization of Drugs on Crime, Accidents, and Educational Achievements [£75,000; PI]
2007 IZA Young Labor Economist Award (joint with Oriana Bandiera and Iwan Barankay)
2005 ESRC RES-000-22-0785: Incentives, Social Preferences and Workers Productivity: New Empirical Evidence [£45,628; Co-I]