Asif M. Islam is a Senior Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Region at the World Bank. His research spans a broad range of economic development issues, with a particular focus on the private sector and the role of government intervention. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals on entrepreneurship, technology, informality, and gender, as well as on fiscal policy, the environment, and agriculture. His work has appeared in the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Growth, World Development, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, and the Harvard Business Review, among others.
Asif has led several semi-annual regional economic updates and co-authored major reports, including the World Development Report 2019: The Changing Nature of Work; Jobs Undone: Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in the Middle East and North Africa; Unlocking Sustainable Private Sector Growth in the Middle East and North Africa; and Uncharted Waters: The New Economics of Water Scarcity and Variability.
He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Maryland–College Park and a bachelor's degree in Economics and Computer Science from Macalester College.