Muhammad Meki – University of Oxford, Associate Professor, Department of International Development, and Associate Member, Department of Economics. Affiliate: J-PAL, CESifo.

Research papers

Asset-based Microfinance for Microenterprises: Evidence from Pakistan (.bib) (2024), American Economic Review (with Faisal Bari, Kashif Malik, and Simon Quinn) [Appendix] https://www.aeaweb.org [Coverage: AEA, VoxDev, IPA, FAI, World Bank, CGD, J-PAL]

Finance and Mutuality: Experimental Evidence on Credit with Performance-Contingent Repayment (.bib) (with Francesco Cordaro, Marcel Fafchamps, Colin Mayer, Simon Quinn, and Kate Roll) [Appendix] [Working papers: Latest, NBER, CEPR][Presentations: AEA / ASSA, CEPR-TCD]

Levelling the Debt-Equity Playing Field: Evidence from a Belgian Policy Change (.bib) (2023), European Economic Review. https://www.sciencedirect.com [Appendix]

Small Firm Investment under Uncertainty: The Role of Equity Finance (.bib) [Vernon L. Smith Young Talent Award in Experimental Finance, Society for Experimental Finance] [Presentations: NBER Summer Institute, BREAD, CEPR-WEFIDEV, British International Investment-CEPR-PEDL][Coverage: World Bank]

Review / policy publications

Dynamic literature review: Microfinance (.bib) (with Jing Cai, Simon Quinn, Erica Field, Cynthia Kinnan, Jonathan Morduch, Jonathan de Quidt, and Farah Said) (2023) VoxDevLit https://voxdev.org/ [CEPR Launch Event][Coverage: Euronews]

Microfinance: An Overview (.bib) (with Simon Quinn) (2024). Oxford Review of Economic Policy https://academic.oup.com/ (summary article for our co-edited issue).

Microequity: Some thoughts for an emerging research agenda (.bib) (with Simon Quinn) (2024). Oxford Review of Economic Policy. https://academic.oup.com/

COVID-19 and the Future of Microfinance: Evidence and Insights from Pakistan (.bib) (with Kashif Malik, Jonathan Morduch, Timothy Ogden, Simon Quinn, and Farah Said) (2020), Oxford Review of Economic Policy. https://academic.oup.com/ [Coverage: Economics Observatory; MIT Technology Review, Dawn, The News International, World Bank, Development Impact]

Ongoing projects

Enabling electric vehicle adoption with innovative financing and infrastructure (with Adam Szeidl and Chris Woodruff)

Grants, blended finance, and investment readiness programmes for SMEs in Iraq (with Razan Amine, Simon Quinn, and Julia Smith-Omomo)

Asset financing for female taxi drivers in Pakistan (with Kashif Malik, Simon Quinn, and Farah Said)

Microequity for female microentrepreneurs in India (with Sanghamitra Mukherjee and Simon Quinn)

Financing virtual migration: Online freelancing in Rural Bangladesh (with Mehrab Bakhtiar, Simon Quinn, and Abu Shonchoy)

[email protected]

I am an Associate Professor at the Department of International Development and an Associate Member of the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. I am an Affiliate at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), CESifo, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), and Pembroke College. I am a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, where I am also the Investment Bursar, responsible for overseeing management of the endowment fund. I completed my PhD at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford (St. John's College), followed by a post-doctoral research fellowship (JRF) at Pembroke College until 2020. I have also completed postgraduate degrees in finance (LSE), economics (Cambridge), and development economics (Oxford). In my research, I am interested in the effect of equity-like financial contracts — involving, for example, shared ownership of assets or income sharing — on the investment and growth of small firms. I have conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, and Pakistan. Prior to academia, I spent five years working in financial markets for Bank of America in London and Deutsche Bank in Singapore, trading European and Asian government bonds, foreign exchange derivatives, and other fixed-income products.