Professor Malik is an economist with a strong multi-disciplinary orientation. His research focuses on the political economy of development in Muslim societies with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa. He uses an empirically rigorous, historically informed, and policy-relevant approach to addressing the big questions in political economy. Professor Malik’s research combines rigorous empirical methods with hand-collected data on firms, political families, and religious institutions. An emerging strand of his research addresses a broad array of questions revolving around the politics of trade reform in Muslim societies, the impact of political dynasties on economic development, the political economy of religion, and the impact of exceptional institutional arrangements in frontier regions on conflict. His research articles have been published in esteemed academic journals, such as the Journal of European Economic Association, European Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Development Economics, Oxford Economic Papers, World Development, and Review of International Political Economy.

Professor Malik obtained his DPhil in economics from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004. As part of his doctoral research, he investigated the causes and consequences of economic fluctuations in developing countries. Professor Malik’s current teaching portfolio includes graduate courses in the Department of International Development (QEH) on (a) the political economy of institutions and development; and (b) the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. He is also supervising several doctoral students.

Alongside his role as Globe Fellow in the Economies of Muslim Societies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Professor Malik is also an Associate Professor of development economics at the Oxford Department of International Development. He is also a Senior Associate of the Cairo-based Economic Research Forum, Senior Fellow of the Policy Initiative in Beirut, and Research Fellow of CERP in Lahore.

Selected Recent Publications

Crony Capitalism in the Middle East: Business and Politics from Liberalization to the Arab Spring (edited with Ishac Diwan and Izak Atiyas), 2019, Oxford University Press.

‘Pre-colonial religious institutions and development: Evidence through a military coup’ (with R. Mirza), 2022, Journal of the European Economic Association, April Issue.

"The Predicament of Establishing Persistence: Slavery and Human Capital in Africa" (with V. Bouaroudj), Journal of Historical Political Economy, Vol 1, No. 3, pp 411-446.

‘Politics of trade protection in an autocracy: Evidence from an EU tariff liberalization in Morocco’ (with C. Ruckteschler and F. Eibl), 2021, European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 71, January 2022.

‘Devolution under autocracy: Evidence from Pakistan’ (with R. Mirza and J-P. Platteau), 2023, In Faguet, J-P and Pal Sarmista (eds) Decentralized Governance: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World, London: LSE Press. 

‘Frontier Rule and Conflict’ (with R. Mirza and F. Rehman), 2023, UNU-WIDER Working Paper. Helsinki.