A Noon Scholar, Nadia Mukhtar has a Masters in Economics for Development from Oxford University. She is a Teaching Fellow at the Department of Economics at LUMS and her research interests lie in the areas of development microeconomics, trade-related development and industrial organisation. She has researched widely for international development organisations and the government on a breadth of policy issues pertaining to competitiveness and growth of SMEs, youth engagement and social networks, as well as the trade-development nexus.
Her recent works include analysing the impact of youth (dis)engagement on development in Pakistan for the UNDP National Human Development Report 2017 and the effect of social networks on the uptake of microfinance in India. She has also looked at how trade agreements can raise bilateral trade between Pakistan and its neighbors (China, India and the Central Asian Republics). Policy work includes regional benchmarking of the competitiveness of Pakistan’s automotive and ready-made garments sectors that informed key government policies. Currently, she is looking at how Pakistan can harness the export potential of its pharmaceutical sector and is also using a survey-based study to assess the economic impact of COVID-19 on SMEs across Pakistan.
