Ragui Assaad

Ragui Assaad, professor, researches labor policy and labor market analysis in developing countries with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. His current work focuses on inequality of opportunity in education, child health, and labor markets, transitions from school-to-work, employment and unemployment dynamics, informality, labor market responses to economic shocks, international migration, and family formation.

Assaad is a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum in Cairo, Egypt and serves as its thematic director for Labor and Human Resource Development. He is also research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany. He served as Regional Director for West Asia and North Africa for the Population Council, based in Cairo, Egypt, from 2005 to 2008.

Assaad has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, the Ford Foundation, UNICEF and UNDP.

He received a doctorate in city and regional planning from Cornell University and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He earned the Humphrey School’s teacher of the year award in 1992, 1995, 1996, and 2000.